
^ ••vT' y o .,,,.♦ .0"' V '.tT' y o 
















William OrduHiy I'artridge, Sc. 

THK GKEELKV MEMOKIAI. MONLMENT 

At Chappaqua, X. Y.. unveiled February 3, 1914 



The University of the State of New York 
Division of Archives and History 



PROCEEDINGS AT 

THE UNVEILING OF A 

MEMORIAL TO 

HORACE GREELEY 

AT CHAPPAOUA, N. Y. 
FEBRUARY 3, 1914 



WITH REPORTS OF OTHER GREELEY CELEBRATIONS RELATED 
TO THE CENTENNIAL OF HIS BIRTH, FEBRUARY 3, 191 1 



PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE STATE HISTORIAN, PURSUANT TO THE ^" 
PROVISIONS OF CHAPTER 643, LAWS OF I913 



ALBANY 



■ Qs-Nf 






THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Regents of the University 
With years when terms expire 

1926 Pliny T. Sexton LL.B. LL.D. C*/tanc^//or - - Palmyra 

1927 Albert Vander Veer M.D. M.A. Ph.D. LL.D. 

Vice Chancellor Albany 

1922 Chester S. Lord M.A. LL.D. ----- New York 

1918 William Nottingham M.A. Ph.D. LL.D. - - Syracuse 
192 1 Francis M. Carpenter ------- Mount Kisco 

1923 Abram I. Elkus LL.B. D.C.L. ----- New York 

1924 Adelbert Moot LL.D. ------- Buffalo 

1925 Charles B. Alexander M.A. LL.B. LL.D. 

Litt.D. ----------- Tuxedo 

1919 John Moore ---------- Elmira 

19 16 Walter Guest Kellogg B.A. - - - - - Ogdensburg 

19 1 7 (Vacant) 

1920 (Vacant) 

President of the University 
and Commissioner of Education 

John H. Finley M.A. LL.D. L.H.D. 

Assistant Commissioners 

Thomas E. Finegan M.A. Pd.D. LL.D. For Elementary Education 

Deputy Commissioner of Education 
Charles F. Wheelock B.S. LL.D. For Secondary Education 
Augustus S. Downing M.A. L.H.D. LL.D. For Higher Education 

Director of State Library 

James I. Wyer, Jr, M.L.S. 

Director of Science and State Museum 

John M. Clarke Ph.D. D.Sc. LL.D. 

Chiefs and Directors of Divisions 

Administration, George M. Wiley M.A. 
Agricultural and Industrial Education, Arthur D. Dean D.Sc, 

Director 
Archives and History, James A. Holden B.A., Director 
Attendance, James D. Sullivan 
Educational Extension, William R. Watson B.S. 
Examinations, Harlan H. Horner M.A. 
Inspections, Frank H. Wood M.A. 
Law, Frank B. Gilbert B.A. 
Library School, Frank K. Walter M.A. M.L.S. 
School Libraries, Sherman Williams Pd.D. 
Statistics, Hiram C. Case 
Visual Instruction, Alfred W Abrams Ph.B 



DEDICATION 
This " Report is intended as a tribute to Horace 
Greeley's memory and to testify to the honor and 
esteem in which the people of the State of New York 
hold the patriotic services and civic virtues of Horace 
Greeley." — Extract from chapter 643, Lazvs of 1913 



A SELF APPRECIATION 

My life has been busy and anxious, but not joyless. Whether 
it shall be prolonged few or more years, I am grateful that it has 
endured so long, that it has abounded in opportunities for good 
r.ot wholly unimproved, and in experiences of the nobler as well 
as the baser impulses of human nature. I have been spared to 
see the end of giant wrongs, which I once deemed invincible in 
this century. And to note the silent upspringing and growth of 
principles and influences which I hail as destined to root out some 
of the most flagrant and pervading evils that yet remain. I realize 
that each generation is destined to confront new and peculiar 
perils — to wrestle with temptations and seductions unknown to 
its predecessors ; yet I trust that progress is a general law of our 
being, and that the ills and woes of the future shall be less crush- 
ing than those of the bloody and hateful past. So looking calmly 
}et humbly for that close of my mortal career which can not be 
far distant, I reverently thank God for the blessings vouchsafed 
me in the past; and with an awe that is not fear and a conscious- 
ness of demerit that does not exclude hope, await the opening 
before my steps of the gates of the Eternal World. — Recollections 
of a Busy Life (Greeley). 



10 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction. Jcdiics Austin Iloldcn ii 

Why the Centenary was Held, James Austin H olden 17 

The Statue at Chappaqua Inaugurated February 3, 1911 29 

Address of Jacob Erlich 31 

Address of General Stewart L. Woodford 32 

A Personal Impression of Horace Greeley, Mrs Gabriclle Greeley 

Clendenin 33 

Address of Daniel P. Hays 35 

Address of President John I. D. Bristol 36 

Greetings 38 

New York City Hall Memorial Meeting 43 

Opening Address by Albert E. Henschel 44 

Address of General Horatio C. King 46 

Address of Major General Daniel 'E. Sickles 53 

Address of William G. McAdoo 54 

Address of Rev. Dr Leighton Williams 55 

Address of John McNaught 59 

Exercises at Greeley's Birthplace, Amherst, N. H 63 

Address by Albert E. Pillsbury 64 

Greeley Honored in Colorado 81 

Address by Mayor George M. Houston 81 

The Founding of Greeley, Colorado, Ralph Meeker 85 

Address of Professor Oliver Howard 89 

Address of Colonel Charles A. White 96 

Commemorative Exercises by Typographical Union No. 6 loi 

Address of the Chairman, James Tole loi 

Horace Greeley and the Cause of Labor, Albert J. Beveridge 104 

Horace Greeley as a Journalist, William H. McElroy 109 

Letters ii9 

The Dedication of the Monument, February 3, 1914 125 

Introductory Remarks 125 

Address and Invocation, Rev. Dr F. M. Clendenin 126 

President's Address, John I. D. Bristol 128 

Horace Greeley and Woman Suffrage, Edith Dorothea Bedell 134 

Acknowledgment on Behalf of the School Children of Chappaqua, 

Perry Brevoort Turner I35 

Address of Jacob Erlich 136 

Address of Albert E. Henschel I37 

Horace Greeley, The Journalist, Richard E. Day 140 

Horace Greeley and the Printers, Marsden G. Scott 143 

Original Manuscripts of Horace Greeley 149 

Studies and Reminiscences I55 

Horace Greeley as a Colonist, Ralph Meeker 155 

Horace Greeley, Political and Social Leader, Richard E. Day 169 

A Wonderful Decade: Horace Greeley — Orator, Editor, National 

Benefactor, Joseph E. King 175 



PAGE 

Newspaper Comment I79 

Characteristic Utterances by Horace Greeley 189 

Campaign Addresses of 1872 211 

Extracts from Addresses 217 

Some Recollections of Horace Greeley. From an interview of the State 

Historian with Chester S. Lord 225] 

Notes for a Lecture on Temperance 231 1 

Horace Greeley's Life Story 237 

Chronology, 181 1-1872 240 

Appendix 245 

Biographical Material on Horace Greeley 249 

Index 261 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

The Greeley Memorial Monument Frontispiece 

Horace Greeley (autographed) lo 

Political Badges of the 1872 Campaign 12 

The Office and Memorial Boulder 14 

Albert E. Henschel 18 

The First Paper upon which Greeley Worked 20 

The Chappaqua Monument 24 

Home in the Woods, Concrete Barn, Barn as Residence 30 

Clendenin Residence, General Stewart L. Woodford 32 

Horace Greeley and Family 34 

John I. D. Bristol 36 

General Horatio C. Kin? 46 

Facsimile of Famous Bail Bond 52 

The Old White Coat and Candidacy Reception 56 

A Favorite Picture 58 

Birthplace Marker 64 

Albert E. Pillsbury 66 

Greeley at Different Ages 70 

Photograph of Greeley at Different Periods 74 

Greeley's Birthplace (tailpiece on) yy 

Ralph Meeker 86 

James Tole 102 

House at Poultney, Vt 104 

From Youth to Old Age 112 

Campaign of i860 118 

Group of Men who Voted for Greeley 125 

Dr and Mrs Clendenin and Daughter 126 

Persons Prominent in Monument Unveiling 128 

Speakers at Monument Dedication 134 

Jacob Erlich 136 

William Ordway Partridge 140 

Rev. and Mrs Frank M. Clendenin 146 

Reproduction of Letter Advocating Home Rule 150 

Letter to Robinson 150 

Greeley's First School House (tailpiece on) 152 

Another Robinson Letter 152 

Advice to a Young Lady 152 

Nathan Cook Meeker 158 

The First Issue of The New Yorker 170 

The First Issue of The Tribune 174 

Senator George A. Slater 180 

Senator Tames D. McClelland 184 

The Lincoln Peace Letter 190 

John Brown 198 

At Chappaqua 206 



FACING 
PAGE 

The Favorite Portrait 212 

At His Desk 226 

Greeley, the Lecturer • . . 232 

Greeley's Daugiiters, and Mary Woodburn 238 

In Memory of the Chappaqua Farmer 240 

\'ictor Guinzburg 242 

Greeley Monument 246 

The Greeley Statue in Front of Tribune Building 248 

The Guinzburg Plaque 261 



INTRODUCTION 

It was late in the spring of 1872 that the hitherto united and 
powerful Republican party had been attacked, not only by foes 
from without, but by friends from within. It was the year for 
presidential election. The country was still bleeding, weary and 
war-torn from the great conflict. Almost like a bolt from the blue 
came the announcement that at Cincinnati a new party had 
been formed, and that this segment of the older party had named 
itself the " Liberal Republican " and had chosen as its standard- 
bearers, Horace Greeley, for President, and B. Gratz Brown, for 
Vice President. 

The writer, a youngster at the time, will never forget the impres- 
sion made upon him at the announcement of these nominations. 
With members of his family, he was enjoying his first car ride on 
the way to Troy for a visit. When the train reached Saratoga, 
the conductor came into the car with a railroad telegram in his 
hand. From every man in the coach came the question, " Who 
was named by the new party?" When the name of Horace 
Greeley was mentioned, while not unexpected, still there was a uni- 
versal expression of dissatisfaction from the Democrats, and of 
disgust from the Republicans. My political ideas as a boy had 
been based on the strongly partisan but divergent and opposing 
views of two excellent local weeklies at home, as well as the Weekly 
Albany Argus, and the Saturday night issue of the Troy Times, 
all of which I read with attention, care and resultant pleasure. 

My father, who had served worthily as an officer and then as 
assistant surgeon, in the famous (original) " Iron Brigade," had 
decided ideas as to the general patriotism of Horace Greeley, 
with which I naturally became quite familiar. 

The conception I then had of Mr Greeley, therefore, based upon 
the written and spoken word of the day, was that of a rather 
savage and eccentric editor, whose course in the Civil War had 
left much to be desired. Time, however, has since, as it so often 
does for all of us, radically moderated my views as to Greeley's 
honesty of purpose and his good intentions toward both North and 
South. 

At that date, however, the patriotic blood in me was as much 
upset over the nomination as were the more practical spirits of the 
men around me in the car, and my first introduction to a presiden- 
tial campaign came as a thrilling and unforgettable incident, whose 
intense interest other, and later, campaigns have of necessity lacked. 

II 



12 TIIK I'MNTCRSITY DF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

( Ireeley, of all men, was the least desired by the Democrats and 
the last looked for by the Republicans, who feared his trenchant 
pen and his popularity in the South, gained through signing the 
bail bond uf Jefferson Davis, the Ex-president of the Confederate 
States of America.^ A few weeks later, on July 9, 1872, the Demo- 
cratic national convention assembled at Baltimore. Greeley and 
P>rown were rather perfunctorily endorsed by the Democrats, and 
the national campaign was begun. Greeley's acceptance of the 
Democratic nomination on July 12th, as taken from a local paper 
in the writer's possession, shows not only the spirit and sentiment 
of Greeley at the time, but his diplomacy in handling what he him- 
self says was an embarrassing position. To the committee of Dem- 
ocrats who waited on him in New York, he spoke as follows : 

Mr Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee of the Convention: 

I shall require time to consider how to reply fitly to the very 
important and, I need not say, gratifying communication that you 
have presented to me. It may be that I should present in writing 
some reply to this. However, as I addressed the Liberal convention 
of Cincinnati in a letter somewhat widely considered, it is, perhaps, 
unnecessary that I should make any formal reply to the communica- 
tion made, other than to say I accept your nomination and accept 
gratefully with it the spirit in which it has been presented. My 
position is one which many would consider a proud one, which, at 
the same time is embarrassing, because it subjects me to temporary — 
I trust only temporary — misconstruction on the part of some old 
and lifelong friends. I feel assured that time only is necessary to 
vindicate not only the disinterestedness, but the patriotism of the 
course which I determined to pursue, which I had determined on 
long before I had received so much sympathy and support as has so 
unexpectedly to me been bestowed upon me. I feel certain that time 
and in the good providence of God an opportunity will be afforded 
me to show that while you, in making the nomination, are not less 
Democratic but rather more democratic than you would have been 
in taking an opposite course, that I am no less thoroughly and 
earnestly Republican than ever I was. But these matters require 

^ In an obituary, the National Quarterly Review of December 1872, pays 
him a plovvinp tribute and cites Greeley's letter showing what sacrifice the 
signing of the bail bond involved. " He had but one great aim — to promote 
by voice and pen the greatest good of the greatest number. . . . .\merican 
slavery, in the days of its power, had no heartier hater than Horace Greeley, 
no more formidable foe; but yet, when at last it lay crushed with the 
rebellion which it caused, there was no inconsistency in his advocacy of a 
general amnesty toward its old supporters. . . . .And here we are reminded 
of that characteristic letter, which must ever remain a conspicuous jewel in 
the life of this man: 'My Friend: Of course I threw away the senatorship 
in 1866 — knowing that I did so — and did myself great pecuniary harm in 
1867 by bailing Jeff Davis; but suppose I hadn't done either? Either God 
rules this world, or does not. I believe He does. Yours, Horace Greeley.' " 



II 




From collection of Stale Historian J. A. H olden 

POLITICAL BADGES OF THE 18/2 CAMPAU;N 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 1 3 

grave consideration before I should make anything that seems a 
formal response. I am not much accustomed to receiving nomina- 
tions for the presidency, and can not make response so fluently as 
some others might do. 

I can only say that I hope some or all of you, if you can make it 
convenient, will come to my humble farmer home, not far distant 
in the country, where I shall be glad to meet all of you, and where 
we can converse more freely and deliberately than we can here, and 
where I shall be glad to make you welcome — well, to the best the 
farm afifords. I hope that many of you, all of you, will be able to 
accept this invitation, and I now simply thank you, and say farewell.^ 

The results of this campaign long ago became history. Although 
not a strong candidate politically, General Ulysses S. Grant, who 
with Henry Wilson opposed Greeley and Brown, was extremely 
popular. The glamor of the war still hung over the country, and 
whatever administrative faults the Republican candidate was al- 
leged to possess, they were hidden by the cloud of hero worship 
which still obtained throughout the North. On the other hand, 
Greeley was handicapped by the fact that for over thirty years he 
had mercilessly attacked the Democratic party, sparing neither it 
nor its greatest men, the lash of his sarcasm and the goad of his 
criticism. And even the fact that he was its candidate did not win 
forgiveness, as was shown when he received a lesser number of 
votes for President in New York State than Horatio Seymour did 
four years before. The campaign was bitterly and violently car- 
ried on in the press and on the platform. Greeley himself wrote, 
" I hardly knew whether I was running for President or the peni- 
tentiary," while Grant said, " I have been the subject of abuse and 
slander scarcely ever equaled in political history." 

October 30th, after a lingering and painful illness. Mrs Greeley, 
wife of the candidate, was called to her eternal rest. Greeley's 
physical strength had been severely taxed in the campaign, and this 
additional burden broke him down. It needed but the result of the 
election, which came on November 5th of that year, when Greeley 
received 66 electoral votes, all from southern states, while Grant 
received 2^2, to bring about a physical collapse. Two days after 
the election he published the following card in the Tribune : 

The undersigned resumes the editorship of the Tribune, which he 
relinquished on embarking in another line of business six months 
ago. Henceforth it shall be his endeavor to make this a thoroughly 
independent journal, treating all parties and political movements 
with judicial fairness and candor, but courting the favor and 
deprecating the wrath of no one. 

1 Glens Falls (N. Y.) Republican, Tuesday, July 16, 1872. 



14 Till-: UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

If he can hereafter say anytliing^ that will tend to heartily unite 
the whole American peoi)!e on the broarl platform of universal 
anmcsty and impartial suffrage, he will gladly do so. For the 
present, however, he can best commend that consummation by silence 
and forbearance. The victors in our late struggle can hardly fail 
to take the whole subject of southern rights and wrongs into early 
and earnest consideration, and to them, for the present, he remits it. 

Since he will never again be a candidate for any office, and is 
not in full accord with either of the great parties which have hitherto 
divided the country, he will be able and will endeavor to give wider 
and steadier regard to the progress of science, industry and the 
useful arts, than a partizan journal can do; and he will not be 
provoked to indulgence in those bitter personalities which are the 
recognized bane of journalism. Sustained by a generous public, he 
will do his best to make the Tribune a power in the broader field 
it now contemplates, as when human freedom was imperiled, it was 
in the arena of political partizanship.^ 

But his day was done. His wife's death, the loss of the presi- 
dency, a position which he had confidently expected to fill, with 
other depressing matters, brought about the condition which caused 
his death, within a month of the election of President Grant. Of 
all the tragedies of politics which have blackened our history, the 
story of Horace Greeley must be considered the saddest and most 
unnecessary. 

He should never have been nominated to the highest position in 
our system of government; his friends should never have allowed 
it. His forte was the occupancy of the editorial chair, not that of 
the executive, nor the politician. 

With his death came that revulsion of feeling so characteristic of 
the American people, and which so generally marks their treatment 
of great citizens, after their death. The very papers which had 
\ ilified and misrepresented Horace Greeley, his ideals and actions, ^ 
now carried the blackest turned rules, and had the most to say in 
favor of Horace Greeley, not the candidate and martyr to public 
opinion, but Horace Greeley the man. High on a pedestal of uni 
versal public esteem, was erected the reputation of this most won-! 
derful product of our American civilization. 

An unknown writer, in the Tribune Almanac for 1873, said in: 
this connection : 

The obsequies of Mr Greeley were of a kind rarely accorded t. 
any save great public characters. In the pulpits of New York an( 
of other cities, upon the subsequent Sunday, allusions were made tc 
the event. The remains were taken to the city hall, where they 

1 From Glens Falls Republican, Tuesday, November 12, 1872. 




Tribune collection 



THE OFFICE 

From an old print 




MEMORIAL BOULDER 

Erected at Amherst, X. H., by that state 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I5 

were visited by an immense concourse of the population. Upon 
the day of the funeral the streets were thronged by a crowd of 
respectful spectators, anxious to show their respect for the departed. 
Among those who attended the funeral were the President and Chief 
Justice of the United States, several heads of departments, many 
representatives and senators, and State and city officials. The ser- 
vices were conducted by Rev. Dr Chapin, pastor of the deceased, 
and by the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. After these the procession 
moved to Greenwood, where the remains of Mr Greeley were 
deposited. 

It seems meet and right, after the hundred years which complete 
the cycle from his birth in Amherst, N. H., to the erection of a 
permanent memorial in Chappaqua, N. Y., where he spent the final 
years of his life, following that f.arming practice to which he had 
turned for a relaxation from editorial work, that the State of his 
adoption, to which and for which he had given of the best there was 
in him. should now, as a tribute to his memory, present this com- 
pilation describing his life, work and achievements, and containing 
the accounts of the observances of the centenary of his birthday, 
in 1911. 

Although more than twoscore years have passed since Horace 
Greeley went to his reward, wherever newspaper men gather and 
the record of the press is rehearsed, his name is still recognized 
and esteemed as that of America's most w^onderful and powerful 
editor. 

In 1846, almost at the outset of his great career, according to his 
biographer, Parton, Horace Greeley penned these words which may 
well stand for his eternal epitaph ; " If, on a full and final review, 
my life and practice shall be found unworthy my principles, let due 
infamy be heaped on my memory; but let none be thereby led to 
distrust the principles to which I proved recreant, nor yet the ability 
of some to adorn them by a suitable life and conversation. To un- 
erring time be all this committed." 

In whatever Greeley undertook, no one ever questioned his sin- 
cerity. To the side he espoused he brought his extraordinary abil- 
ity as a writer, his cogent power as a thinker and his moral force as 
a public man. Although seldom successful in his political aspira- 
tions, he nevertheless, up to the time of his candidacy for President, 
wielded a greater influence through the columns of the Tribune 
than most other leaders of the Republican party did, or have since 
that day. A strong advocate of abolition, he carried it, as he did 
everything, to the farthest possible point. He was an ardent pro- 



l6 TlIK UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

tcctioiiist, and was one of the pioneer advocates of woman's rights, 
at a time when they were not so popular as now. 

Taken all in all, Horace Greeley was one of those rare characters 
u liich appear once in an age and, like the comet flashing athwart the 
sky, make a brilliant path across human events and then disappear, 
their exact like possil)ly never to he seen again. 

In commemoration of this great life, therefore, the Division of 
History of The University of the State of New York submits this 
publication, in the hope that another and younger generation to 
whom he is all but unknown may learn from it somewhat of the 
man who in the days of newspaper giants, towered above them all. 

James Austin Holden 
Albany, N. Y . State Historian 

February 3, ipr^ 



^ 



WHY THE CENTENARY WAS HELD 

BY JAMES AUSTIN HOLDEN 

The centennial observance of the birth of Horace Greeley had its 
origin in a rather peculiar way. While browsing around in an old 
bookshop, Albert E. Henschel, of New York, well known for his 
many years' connection as secretary and then counsel with Andrew 
H. Green, the famous philanthropist, publicist and father of Greater 
New York, found among other books, a small quarto volume. This 
work bore the inscription, " Oration at the Grave of Horace 
Greeley." The oration was by L. M. Lawson, and was delivered 
at Greeley's grave in Greenwood cemetery. May 30, 1889, before 
Horace Greeley Post, no. 577, G. A. R. This find took place about 
1909. 

The thing that especially caught Mr Henschel's eye in this patri- 
otic and eloquent oration was the statement that Greeley " was born 
in a hamlet called Amherst, in New Hampshire, in 181 1." This 
pointed out the near completion of one hundred years since Greeley 
was born, and inspired Mr Henschel with the thought that the cen- 
tenary of a man who had wrought such immense good to his coun- 
try and mankind should not be allowed to pass into oblivion withr 
out due notice and worthy observance. 

Knowing that John I. D. Bristol and Jacob Erlich, both of Chap- 
paqua, Mr Greeley's home for many years, were greatly interested 
in having a memorial to Mr Greeley erected in that place, Mr Hen- 
schel called their attention to the fact that no more appropriate time 
could be chosen than this for bringing before the public, in connec- 
tion with the approaching centenary, the suitability of the erection 
of such a commemorative design as Mr Greeley's friends had long 
had in mind. 

According to Mr Erlich's very valuable scrapbook, containing 
the original correspondence in regard to this matter, on May 14. 
1909, he wrote to Mr Bristol suggesting a meeting for the purpose 
of considering some testimonial to the character, and to commemo- 
rate the life, of Horace Greeley. Mr Bristol replied on May 17th. 
" I very heartily reciprocate your wishes in the concludmg para- 
graph of your letter as to a conference to some convenient time to 
both of us. Your suggestion is in line with progress, and notwith- 
standing failures in the past, success in that direction may yet be 
achieved." 

17 



l8 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

On May 25th Mr Bristol again wrote to Mr Erlich regarding a 
meeting to take place at the home of Mr Guinzburg in Chappaqua, 
on or about June 15th. This meeting was subsequently held and 
was the nucleus for the organization of the Chappaqua Historical 
Society, from which was appointed what was known as the Horace 
Greeley memorial committee, consisting of the following persons: 
John I. D. Bristol, president, Victor Guinzburg, vice president, 
Jacob Erlich, treasurer, Edwin Bedell, secretary, Morgan Cowper- 
thwaite, George Hunt, Wilbur Hyatt, George D. Mackay, John 
McKesson, Jr, Hiram E. Manville, A. H. Smith, L. Thompson, 
Albert Turner. 

The preliminary work of the committee was successfully accom- 
plished, and circulars were prepared and sent out calling the atten- 
tion of various organizations, schools, educational institutions, and 
prominent individuals of the United States to this proposed memo- 
rial. A tentative program embodying suggestions for the obser- 
vance of the centenary by schools and educational institutions was 
then drawn up and sent broadcast throughout the country. A 
sketch of the life of Horace Greeley, with brief extracts from his 
writings and biographical notes, was also written and published by 
Mr Erlich and mailed with this tentative program. 

Space will not permit the insertion of the many interesting 
letters which were received by Mr Bristol and Mr Erlich from the 
heads of educational institutions throughout the United States, all 
of whom were heartily in accord with and in favor of the projected 
celebration. 

Among a few of the noted educators who concurred and gave 
their heartiest approval were Booker T. \\"ashington, William H. 
Maxwell, superintendent of schools of New York City, President 
Arthur T. Hadley of Yale. President J. G. Schurman of Cornell, 
Rabbi Stephen S. W^ise of New York, Chancellor Henry M. Mac- 
Cracken of New York University and Samuel T. Dutton of the 
Teachers College, Columbia University. 

Among individuals and outside organizations that supported the 
idea were the City Club of New York, the Quoin Club of the same 
city, the New York (City) Historical Society, H. L. Bridgman, 
the Arctic explorer. Mayor Gaynor, John P. Mitchel, then president | 
of the board of aldermen and now mayor of New York City, Mrs 
Bayard Taylor, Mayor George H. Houston of the city of Greeley, 
Col., and many other distinguished persons of all grades and shades f 
of creed and political opinion. Among later correspondents who 
approved were Plon. Smith Ely and R. Fulton Cutting, 




ALBERT E. HEXSCHEL 

Originator of the Greeley memorial volume, and promoter of the centenary 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I9 

Encouragement was received by the committee, in addition to 
that from outside sources, from members of Mr Greeley's family. 
Dr and Mrs Frank M. Clendenin, the latter of whom was his 
daughter, Gabrielle, both responded cheerfully to suggestions of 
the Greeley memorial committee to facilitate the labors attendant 
upon the centenary and its proper observance ; while Mr Greeley's 
granddaughter, Mrs Nixola Greeley Smith Ford, who has inherited 
some of his journalistic genius, gave valuable aid to the com- 
mittee, as did her sister, Miss Ida Greeley Smith. 

Among the letters received by Mr Erlich were two of special in- 
terest, as they have a distinct historical and biographical value. 
One was from Colonel William Conant Church, of the Army and 
Navy Journal, who, under date of. January 24, 1911, writes: 

In response to your request, I send two slips for deposit in crypt, 
inclosing $2 in accordance with your notification. 

My father. Rev. Pharcellus Church D. D., who passed the closing 
years of his life at Tarrytown, N. Y., was some eighty-two or three 
years ago a pastor in East Poultney, Vt. Among members of his 
congregation was the editor of the Northern Spectator, published 
in that town. One day this gentleman called my father's attention 
to a printer's boy he had in his office and asked that he be allowed 
to introduce him. He said he was not much to look at but was a 
remarkable lad. His name was Horace Greeley. Thus my family 
associations with Mr Greeley, whom I knew well in his later life, 
dates back to about the year 1827 or 1828. 

Another member of my father's congregation at that time was 
George Jones, who subsequently joined with Henry J. Raymond 
and Mr Wesley in establishing the New York Times. Thus it 
appears that the two men instrumental in establishing two of the 
great New York dailies originated in the same little hamlet among 
the hills of Vermont. 

The other letter, dated January 13, 191 1, was from John R. 
Kendrick, a publisher of Philadelphia, who said : 

I have your favor of the nth, and in reply would say that, per- 
sonally, my interest in the memory of Horace Greeley is because 
of the fact that he was partly reared in the same town where my 
father was born, and the two were playmates for a time. I refer 
to the village of Poultney, Vt., where Horace Greeley learned the 
printing trade, though he left there in early life. My father kept 
up Mr Greeley's acquaintance for many years after they grew into 
manhood. 

In a postscript to this letter Mr Kendrick says^ " Mr Greeley 
boarded with my grandfather in Poultney way back prior to 1830." 

The work of the centenary was also enthusiastically supported 
and forwarded by Typographical Union No. 6, of which Mr Greeley 



20 TlIK UNIVliKSITV OF Tllli: STATE OF NEW VOKK 

was the original president, by the American Scenic and Historic 
Preservation Society, and the Society for Ethical Culture, all of 
which took formal action in the direction of a successful observance. 

September 15, 1910, the Chapi)a(|ua Historical Society, organized 
for the objects shown in the following extract from its by-laws, 
took an active i)art in the promotion of the Greeley memorial statue: 
" The object of this society is to foster and perpetuate all historical 
data and reminiscences in connection with Westchester county and 
especially of Chappaqua; the preservation of historical papers and 
documents relating to those subjects and particularly to Horace 
Greeley; the erection of historical tablets; and other objects common 
with societies of this character." 

About this time the New York World, the Press, the Tribune 
and the Times heartily approved, by editorials and in their news 
columns, the plan for erecting a statue to commemorate this cen- 
tenary, the comments of the World and the Press being specially 
strong in their approbation. In an editorial, which is pronounced 
by Rev. Dr Clendenin in an undated letter to Mr Erlich, " one of 
the best summaries of his [Greeley's] life that have been written, 
except his own summary of his life found in his ' Recollections of 
a Busy Life,' " ^ The New York World of September 17, 1910, 
says, under the caption, "Horace Greeley's 100 Years:" 

To the many persons still living who remember Horace Greeley 
as a daily figure in the life of New York the one hundredth anni- 
versary of his birth, which falls on February 3, 1911, will have a 
special significance. By those of a later generation no less is tribute 
due to the memory of a man who played a part as editor, antislavery 
leader and ardent supporter of the Union that made him one of the 
leading characters of his century. 

The moral force and energy that Greeley brought to his work gave 
him a personal influence that today is difficult to appreciate under 
changed conditions. The blows he struck for freedom when the 
fight against human slavery was a doubtful cause and most needed 
recruits were the expression of convictions that ignored popular ill 
will and personal danger. He was a dangerous combatant whose 
conscience told him that he was right regardless of majorities and 
m.inorities, and time and events have fully justified the enlightened 
doctrines that he preached with unsparing vehemence. 

Merely as the man who brought about the nomination of Lincoln, 
Greeley would deserve a fitting monument. In journalism, in politics 
and in public life he exercised extraordinary power, and in the main 
that power was the result of moral ideals that can never die. It 
is well that steps should be taken at once to bring about a fitting 
observance of the centennial of his birth. 

1 Page 429. 






f El-iicf-i 



= " -'' t i k* S t i t 
















HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 21 

It was finally decided that February 3, 4, and 5, 1911, should be 
set apart for the observance of the centenary. Hon. John A. Dix, 
then Governor of the State of New York, issued the following 
proclamation : 

Albany, February j, iprr 

It is fitting that the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Horace 
Greeley should be widely commemorated. Sprung from the plain 
people, Horace Greeley was the embodiment of the heroic spirit of 
genuine American democrats. He was a great man in an age of 
great men, a giant among giants, a journalist-statesman possessed 
by a veritable passion for liberty and justice. He gave to his country 
and to the world an inspiring example of a staunch and brave patriot, 
who hated wrong of every sort, but loved his fellow men as he loved 
himself. Horace Greeley planted the seed of national reconciliation. 
The complete triumph of his principles and his influence came after 
his death, when universal amnesty was declared and the states of 
the North and South forgot the bitter strife of Civil War and 
joined hearts and hands as brothers under a flag that will float 
forever as the ensign of a free and reunited nation. It is indeed 
well to pay tribute to the memory of the son of New England whose 
life and achievements lend luster to the history of the Empire State 
and of the United States. 

John a. Dix 

The Senate, on February 3d, passed the following resolution, 
offered by Senator Thomas F. Grady : 

Resolved, That the Senate of the State of New York on this the 
hundredth anniversary of the birth of Horace Greeley recalls his 
great service in behalf of the people and institutions of this country 
and his commanding place among the humanitarians of his time. 
That as a lover of freedom to all, without regard to race, religion 
or color, that as a patriotic and courageous citizen devoted to the 
National Union, that as a man of noble character and uncommon 
ability, w'hose great sympathies were ever with the oppressed and 
struggling, and as the most distinguished of newspaper editors in 
his day and generation, whose pen guided public effort and cham- 
pioned fearlessly every worthy cause, he left to his country an 
example of sterling American citizenship which has been and ever 
will be an inspiration to the youth and manhood of the land. 

Resolved. That out of respect to the memory of Horace Greeley 
and to afford its members an opportunity to participate in the more 
formal ceremonies of the day, the Senate now adjourns to meet 
tomorrow (Saturday) morning at 11.45 o'clock. 

The President put the question whether the Senate would agree 
to said resolution, and it was decided in the affirmative. Whereupon, 
the Senate adjourned.^ 

^ Extract from the Journal of the Senate of the State of New York for 
February 3, 191 1, v. i, p. 102. 



22 THI-: UNIVF.RSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

In the Assembly, Alfred E. Smith said: 

Mr Speaker, before moving to adjourn I desire to state that it is 
fit and proper that the Assembly take notice of the fact that one 
hundred years ago today in the little town of Amherst, in the state 
of New JJampshire, Horace Greeley was born. Proper and fitting 
ceremonies to celebrate that event are taking place today and 
tomorrow, both at his birthplace and at his place of residence in 
later years in Westchester county. During his lifetime, because of 
his great strengLh and force of character, he occupied a very 
prominent place in our civil and political life. He was the leader 
of thought in affairs of city, State and nation, at one time the can- 
didate of our party for the presidency of the United States. It 
seems, therefore, fit and proper that when the Assembly adjourns 
today on this anniversary of his birthday, it adjourn out of respect 
to his memory. 

On motion of Mr A. E. Smith, the House adjourned until Satur- 
day, February 4th, at 11.30 o'clock a. m.^ 

The board of aldermen of the city of New York adopted this 
resolution, which appears in their minutes, as No. 2752, under date 
of January 31, 191 1 : 

By the vice chairman : 

Whereas, The one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Horace 
Greeley will occur on February 3, 191 1, and the recognition of this 
event must revive useful lessons and stimulate our youth to emulate 
the noble virtues and heroic patriotism of a great character in our 
country's history, therefore 

Resolved, That the Horace Greeley memorial committee is hereby 
permitted to use the aldermanic chamber on Friday, February 3. 
191 1, at 12 o'clock m., for the purpose of holding appropriate 
exercises. 

Which was adopted. 

The mayor of Greeley, Colorado, emphasized the local celebra- 
tion by issuing the following: 

On February 3, 191 1, one hundred years will have passed since 
the birth of Horace Greeley, and, while the educational institutions 
of the United States have planned in a very general way to observe 
that day as one of great importance in the history of the nation, to 
this community the day should have a peculiar significance. 

Therefore, on February 3d, will not this community meditate 
upon the character of the man for whom our city was so appro- 
priately named, and dwell for a time upon the simple elements of 
his wholesome character, and while congratulating ourselves upon 
the heritage of a good name and the good traditions of our beginning. 



^ Extract from the Journal of the Assembly of the State of New York, 
for February 3, 1911, v. i, p. 185-86. 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 23 

may we not receive a yet stronger regard for the obligations to main- 
tain and improve tliat iieritage. 

On that day will all public buildings, residences and business 
houses, please display the /\merican tlag and as tar as possible place 
in view portraits of Horace Greeley. 

George M. Houston 

A'layor 
Greeley, Colorado, January 21, ipii 

In their proper places in this work will be found accounts of the 
Greeley memorial meetings which took place at Chappaqua, at 
Greeley, Col., and at the city hall, New York. February 3d, and 
at the New York Theater under the auspices of Typographical 
Union No. 6, on February 5th. At the same time, as heretofore 
stated, the various schools throughout the country held special 
exercises in honor of this centenary. 

The chief result of all this work was the ultimate securing of a 
statue, with a suitable pedestal, as a permanent memorial at Chap- 
paqua. The work of designing and casting the statue was intrusted 
to the famous sculptor, William Ordway Partridge. The result 
was extremely satisfactory as a work of art, and a most lifelike 
representation in bronze of Mr Greeley was cast at the Roman 
Bronze Foundry from Mr Partridge's model. The statue is about 
9 feet 6 inches in height and stands on a pedestal of Pompton pink 
granite about 10 feet high. The architect of the pedestal was 
William Henry Deacy, of Ossining and New York City. 

The statue faces toward the little village of Chappaqua. Sur- 
rounded by an ornamental coping, forming a protective plaza, it 
rises in the valley, the most prominent object in sight from the 
hilltops and the country round about. 

All the famous Greeley statues show him seated. Mr Partridge, 
however, has conceived him as standing, his chin slightly raised, as 
if looking off toward his farm lands in a moment of relaxation. 
His right arm hangs easily by his side, and in his hand is a news- 
paper slightly crumpled by the firm grasp. The position is an easy 
and unstrained one, and the facial expression betokens Greeley's 
well-known simplicity and ideality of character. 

At Chappaqua on February 3, 191 1, on a site given by John I. D. 
Bristol, ground for the monument was broken by the members of 
the Chappaqua Historical Society, at which time took place the 
observance of the centenary which is noted elsewhere. 

A bill relating to the statue, and making an appropriation of 
$10,000, was introduced in the Legislature at Albany by Hon. J. 



24 THE uni\i:rsitv of tiik state or new york 

Mayhevv Wainwright in the Senate, March 5, 1912, and by Hon. 
George A. Slater in the Assembly on the 6th. Among those who 
supported and urged the passage and executive approval of this 
bill, were Judge Alton B. Parker, Professor George W. Kirchwey 
of the Columbia School of Law, Hon. W. G. McAdoo, now Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, and many other men noted in statecraft and 
politics. 

The bill passed both houses of the Legislature, but Governor Dix 
could not see his way clear to give it his signature because of the 
then depleted condition of the State treasury, and thus the bill 
failed to become a law. Nothing daunted, however, by the lack 
of the funds sought from this legislation, the erection of the statue 
was begun by the committee, and was carried to a successful end 
by private contributions, donations and subscriptions from many 
sources. 

Before the Legislature of 1913 Mr Henschel bnally appeared as 
a representative of the Horace Greeley memorial committee and 
secured the introduction and passage of the following bill : 

An Act authorizing a report relative to the unveiling of the monu- 
ment to be erected in commemoration of the centenary of the birth 
of Horace Greeley, and making an appropriation therefor. 

The People of the State of Nezv York, represented in Senate and 
Assembly, do enact as folloivs: 

Section i The official known as the State Historian and Chief 
of the Division of History, of the Department of Education, is 
hereby authorized to prepare and have printed a report to the Legis- 
lature relative to the unveiling of the monument to be erected in 
this State in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of 
the birth of Horace Greeley, together with a record of memorial 
exercises held in celebration of said event, and such other matter 
as said official may deem suitable and appropriate. Said report is 
intended as a tribute to Horace Greeley's memory and to testify to 
the honor and esteem in which the people of the State of New York 
bold the i)atriotic services and civic virtues of Horace Greeley. 

§ 2 For the purpose of carrying out the objects of this act, the 
sum of fifteen hundred dollars ($1500), or so much thereof as may 
be necessary, is hereby appropriated. 

§ 3 This act shall take effect immediately. 

This met with legislative and executive approval and became 
chapter 643 of the Laws of 1913. 

It is in accord with the provisions and mandates of this act that 
this publication, containing the accounts of the chief observances 
of the centenary, as well as the proceedings at the unveiling of the 




William Ordway Partridge, Sc. 



THE CHAPPAyUA MONUMENT 

Unveiled Februarj'- 3, 1914 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 25 

monument and permanent memorial at Chappaqua, is presented to 
the public. An attempt is thus made to secure as permanent a 
record of America's greatest editor and newspaper man, with type 
and ink and paper, those essential accessories of his craft, as will 
be furnished by the colossal and imperishable statue in bronze which, 
so long as grass grows and water runs, will stand in the little 
country town, which he loved next to his beloved Tribune, as a 
tribute born of the affection and regard of his countrymen. 

In the compilation of this work, the editor has been very for- 
tunate in having access to the great collection of Greeley material 
in the possession of the Rev. Dr Clendenin and his wife; as well 
as to the collections of Jacob Erlich and Albert E. Henschel, who 
have spent years and considerable sums of money in gathering a 
great amount of Greeleyana and data referring to the subject of 
this memorial. 

Owing to the fire which several years ago destroyed ]\Ir Greeley's 
house at Chappaqua, with its large amount of manuscripts, letters 
and papers, a definitive history of Horace Greeley can never be 
written, at least from the original sources. Relying as we have 
bad to do, then, on the printed records, it is believed that this work 
will furnish to the world as near an approach to a final life of the 
great editor as is likely to be presented, at least to this generation. 



THE STATUE AT CHAPPAQUA 
INAUGURATED 



THE STATUE AT CHAPPAQUA INAUGURATED 
FEBRUARY 3, 1911 

Though many observances of the centenary of Horace Greeley's 
natal day were held throughout the country, there probably was 
not one that could evoke a keener interest than the exercises at 
Chappaqua. There, in that rural settlement, the chosen home of 
tforace Greeley, in the concrete barn built by him and since trans- 
formed into a dwelling, lives his only surviving daughter, Gabrielle, 
with her husband, the Rev. Dr Frank M. Clendenin, and their 
daughter, Gabrielle. 

Here are clustered their Lares and Penates. In this home, suit- 
ably decorated, were assembled and exhibited the chief relics that 
were to remind the neighbors and lovers of Greeley, of old asso- 
ciations, and of the unflagging work that he had done for his 
country and for humanity at large. 

The lower floor of the house was filled with examples of his 
handwriting. Many of these manuscripts belong to Doctor and Mrs 
Clendenin, but many others were lent by friends and members of 
the Chappaqua Historical Society. 

There were two large scrapbooks filled with manuscripts of his 
political writings, among them, one of a lecture on Lincoln written 
just before Mr Greeley's death and which was never delivered. 
Jacob Erlich lent the manuscript of Mr Greeley's work on political 
economy, a facsimile of Jefferson Davis's bail bond signed by Mr 
Greeley, and other Greeley mementos. There was the correspond- 
ence between Greeley and Ezra Haiglit on the purchase of the farm 
at Chappaqua. There were several copies of the " Clay Tribune," 
published by Greeley and McElrath, which preceded the Tribune 
of today, and one of the papers on which the future editor did his 
work in 1826. Before the fireplace downstairs stood the sentinel 
armchair that he had used from the time he was nineteen years old, 
while in a corner of the room was the desk he used for the last ten 
years of his newspaper life, and across from it was the flat-topped 
table that preceded the standing desk. There were the rare first 
copies of the various journals he published and edited. Among 
the many other objects of interest were the marble bust made of 
Greeley when he was but thirty years old, by Hart, the famous 
Kentucky sculptor, the cradle in which he was rocked, the case at 
which he set type, in Erie, the copy of the first newspaper which 
he himself set up and in which he stuck the type for articles of his 

29 



30 THE UNI\RRSITV OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

own cuinposilion, tlic Hag that waved over the Tribune building 
during the Civil War, and the resolutions of the board of aldermen 
of the city of New York as well as of the city of Detroit. The 
New York resolutions are those referred to in a letter by Mayor 
Havenieyer to Samuel J. Tilden, requesting him to prepare the 
presentation address on tendering the engrossed resolutions to Mr 
Greeley's family. There were many photographs and engravings 
descriptive of his life, a number of his published works, and the oil 
painting of Greeley's son, Arthur, whose pet name was "Picky" 
and whose early death wrought a deep and permanent sorrow into 
Mr Greeley's soul. 

Before the exercises of the day there was the regular annual 
meeting of the Chappaqua Historical Society, held always on the 
anniversary of Mr Greeley's birth. 

There w-ere present among others, besides the members of the 
society and family. General Stewart L. Woodford, Walter L. Mc- 
Corkle, vice president of the Southern Society of New York, James 
Wood, Daniel P. Hays, and General Edwin A. Merritt, then 84 
years old. The following attended as delegates from Typographical 
Union No. 6: James Tole, C. M. Maxwell, William F. Wetzel, John 
F. Crossland, C. D. Dumas, James H. Dahm, S. W. Gamble, James 
P. Farrell and James D. Kennedy. 

Tiie following gentlemen who were present, declared that they 
had voted the Greeley ticket in the presidential campaign of 1872: 
Charles Haines, lawyer, of Bedford; D. Cox, retired, of Hawthorne; 
J. J. Birdsall, of White Plains; George Hunt, merchant, Chappaqua; 
W. I. Halstead, merchant, Mount Kisco ; J. D. Bailey, builder, 
Chappaqua; Theodore Carpenter, retired, Mount Kisco; A. J. 
Quimby, retired, Chappaqua; Elliot H. See, Pleasantville; W. Hi 
Plsher, retired, Chappaqua; Edwin Bedell, editor of the Chappaqu^ 
Item ; General E. A. Merritt ; Moses Wanzer and D. Rousseau^ 
These old Greeley voters were photographed later in the day. 

Among Mr Greeley's relatives were Mrs Andrew W. Ford, who 
was Nixola Greeley Smith, and Miss Ida Greeley Smith, his grand-> 
daughters ; Dr Horace Greeley, of the Brooklyn health department, 
a grandson; Mrs Fanny Storey, a grandniece, and Miss Gabrielle 
Clendenin, another granddaughter. 

Secretary Bedell read letters and telegrams from those who could 
not be present, including the follow^ing from Ex-mayor Seth Low: 

When I was in Clarksburg, W. Va., a little while ago, I was shown 
the original indictment which had been found there against Horace 
Greeley, with a copy of the New York Tribune upon which the 







From an old print tn "Recollections o] a Busy Lije" 

"the home in the woods" 
Destroyed by fire in 1877 




From ail old pniu 

HIS concrete barn 

One of the first of the concrete constructions. Made 
into a residence after the burning of "Home in 
the Woods" 




the barn as a ri -iKi n« i: 

Transformed from the concrete structure into the Clendenin 

residence 



HORACE GREELF.Y MEMORIAL 3I 

indictment was found, for inciting insurrection among the slaves. 
Times have so changed that it is hard for any one now to think 
himself back into a time when slavery existed in the United States. 
We do well now to honor, whenever we can, the memory of the brave 
men who wrote and suffered in the cause of human freedom when 
it was a hard and unpopular thing to do. Horace Greeley was one 
of those doughty champions, and I am glad his memory is kept green 
in the place [in which] he had his home for so many years. 

Dr Frank M. Clendenin opened with prayer, after which Mr 
John I. D. Bristol, president of the society, introduced the treasurer, 
Mr Jacob Erlich, as the first speaker. 



ADDRESS OF JACOB ERLICH 

We are gathered here today to honor and help perpetuate the 
memory of one of America's illustrious men. We may well rejoice 
that there lived among us a man so simple, so great, so noble as 
Horace Greeley. 

A born genius, early manifesting signs of extraordinary intellect, 
with little schoohng, by great industry and perseverance,, and not- 
withstanding endless hardships, he lifted himself till he held pre- 
eminent rank among the public men of his time. An uncompromis- 
ing leader for his ideals, he was the militant champion of purity, 
honesty, patriotism and justice. 

Those nearest him, loved and honored him most. 

Slavery found in Horace Greeley its mightiest and most deadly 
foe. By years of reiteration in the Tribune, which he founded — 
the most powerful organ of public opinion of the time — he exposed 
the giant wrongs of human servitude. He laid the foundation for 
the great upheaval of public opinion which gave to the Union cause 
the spirit and the logic by which its battles were won. 

Horace Greeley knew the condition and needs of his country, 
as few men knew them. His voice was heard, his influence felt, 
in every part of the Union. That the noble lessons of such a life 
might find abundant fruitage in coming generations, we have caused 
appropriate exercises to be held in the public schools of the country. 

As time goes on, Horace Greeley will be better known, appre- 
ciated and judged by his achievement. 

In closing, I can do no better than to quote the words of that 
distinguished jurist and statesman, whom we have with us today, 
General Stewart L. Woodford, while presiding over the New York 
Electoral College in 1872. On this occasion, referring to the un- 



32 THE UNMVERSITY OF Till-: STATE OF NEW YORK 

tiiiK'ly death of iMr (ireeley, who had been the unsuccessful candi- 
date for the presidency, General Woodford said : 

We gather under tiie shadow of great sorrow, for he who was 
the competitor of the successful candidate for the presidency lies 
silent forever in deatii. The day which shall record the election of 
the one, will witness the burial of the other. This victory of the 
approval of the nation which has come to the one living, this greater 
victory, which has come to the other, of peaceful entrance into the 
rest of Heaven, make this gathering forever memorable. 

To him who shall continue our President ; to us who shall give 
the formal vote for his reelection ; to all the children of the Republic, 
the life and memory of Horace Greeley shall remain as an inspiration 
to kindlier, broader patriotism, to more faithful performance of duty. 
Thus comes from the grave the higher call to nobler living. 

ADDRESS OF GENERAL STEWART L. WOODFORD 

General Woodford, in memories of Mr Greeley, brought tears 
to the eyes of many as he spoke feelingly of his friend. The general 
told of first knowing Mr Greeley in the editorial rooms of the 
Tribune in 1854 and 1856. 

" He was the power on the Tribune," said General Woodford, 
" but yet most gracious and kind to the youngsters who were 
permitted to work for the paper. He was a leader of the press 
and the Republican party, whose name, I think, he suggested, and 
in the fall of 1856, when Fremont ran for President, he would 
often go in the evenings from his office to some ward meeting, 
where in his quaint and simple language he did so much to enforce 
his views on the voters. 

" Mr Greeley was a delegate from Oregon to the Republican 
convention in i860, and I was a delegate from the Fairfield district ' 
of Connecticut. In those days delegates did not have to live in the 
states they represented. I have lived long enough to thank God 
for the divine work of Abraham Lincoln, and in that convention 
it was Horace Greeley, more than any other man, who forced the i 
nomination of Lincoln. His nomination was due to the courage 
and domination of Horace Greeley. 

" Mr Greeley's work is done, but his influence will abide while , 
this nation lives. Llis work for the slaves, clean politics andj 
organized labor will ever live. His work for sound currency no' 
banker can ever forget. His words were ' The way to resume is ; 
to resume.' 

" He lived a life that was devoted to charity, to brotherhood of 
man, to labor, to the development of national resources and to the 
strengthening of the National Union. His was a great life. 

i 




THE CLENDENIX RESIDENCE 

At Chappaqua, Greeley's cradle on the hearth, and picture 
over mantel 




GENERAL STEWART I.. W OCIDEORD 



Addressing gathering in parlor, Greeley homestead at Chappaqua, birth 
centenary exercises, February 3, 191 1 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 33 

" The greatest thing Mr Greeley ever did was when he went on 
the bail bond of Jefferson Davis, which was a great pledge of 
brotherhood that secured the unity of the nation." 

Rev. Dr Clendenin then read the following paper prepared by 
Mrs Clendenin : 

A PERSONAL IMPRESSION OF HORACE GREELEY 

MRS GABRIELLE GREELEY CLENDENIN 

I'Viday evening was always the brightest and happiest of the 
wlu)le week at Chappacjua, for that was sure to bring my dear father 
home. The whole house was alive with happy preparation. The 
very pine trees pointed tiny little lingers down the wild woody 
road to show the way he was coming. How eagerly I remember 
watching a certain little pink gingham frock being ironed in which 
I was to go and meet him. I used to sit between two patriarchal 
oak trees till in the distance the familiar figure was seen, slightly 
bent forward, his arms loaded with good things, entering the gate ; 
and then I would fly to meet him. How my little arm used to crook 
itself up and take as much of his load as it could, and how somehow 
the burden was always lifted just a little higher, so my help was 
only an empty form. We used often on these walks to talk of a 
wonderful pony he was looking for and which arrived, sleek and 
round, and mischievous, one birthday morning. 

The first thing when we reached the house was to seek mother's 
room where the dear inmate for years struggled with a terrible 
cough. From there, carried in triumph on his back, I would ride 
down to dinner. After dinner, sitting around the table, he would 
call for Dana's book of poetry and read to us many of his favorites. 
I look now at the familiar lines and smile to think how incompre- 
hensible they must have been to my childish mind, and yet I loved 
the reading, and thought like the wise men of today, I " knew it all." 
I used frequently to pipe up at those happy times " Papa, please 
tell us a ' nanydote.' " One of the anecdotes still remains in my 
mind, of a certain sea captain who traveling for his company used 
to bring in very long bills. One of the charges they especially 
objected to was three pounds for " a cocked hat " to be worn on a 
visit to an Indian prince. The next time the accounts were more 
wisely itemized, and they expressed themselves as perfectly satisfied. 
" Ah," he said, with a twinkle in his eye, " the cocked hat's there, 
but vou don't see it." 



34 THE UNIVEKSITV OF THE STATE OF NEW VOKK 

At one of the lioine gatherings some one, fearing 1 was being 
petted too much, said: " Mr (jreeley, don't Hatter the child." 

" liut," 1 answered in his defense, " i'ussy just loves flatty," and 
if gentleness and a great lo\ing heart injure anyone, he would have 
gi\en me some excuse for being spoiled. 

i remember one incident of his indulgence. One day he brought 
home an umbrella with a wooden dog's head as a handle. My 
covetous little heart proceeded to set itself upon that canine effigy. 
In vain papa olfered me a whole dog, but 1 pleaded that no other 
liead in the world would be like that head, and the result was he 
sawed it off and went back to town with a handleless umbrella. 

I can not recall my father speaking a single harsh or unkind word 
to either my dear sister or myself, but I can recall today an occasion 
in which I longed to give myself a good shaking. Papa was en- 
grossed in his paper, and no word or inquiry of mine could rouse 
him. So, to get his attention at any price, I began tearing away 
little bits of his newspaper. I must have reached at length the 
article he was reading, for gently rising, he lifted me by my arms 
(for my legs I made instantly limp) and so deposited me outside 
his locked door without a word. Howls of indignation from me 
brought anxious inquiries from a relative, but he made no explana- 
tion ; neither did I. My humiliation was too great at being ignored. 

The faces of people are children's books, from which they read 
searchingly. Scanning earnestly his dear face, so full of the sun- 
shine of purity, so bright with humor and wisdom, a deep im- 
pression, never to be effaced, was made upon me at the terrible 
sorrow I saw written there when he came home and told of 
Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Never again did I see that look 
till the one he loved to call " Mother " passed away. Then it settled 
down with a grief from which he never roused himself. I never 
could trace any signs of disappointment at the presidential cam- 
paign going against him, but rather a quiet and humorous philos- 
ophy. I think his main regret would have been for those faithful 
friends who had followed a lost cause. The Saturday before 
mother's death he walked with me to Saint Mary's School, where 
he had placed me a few days before. Little did I think as he left 
me at the door, we should meet on Monday at the side of that 
dear mother from whose face death had smoothed the cares and 
sufferings of years. From that time he could not sleep, and he 
seemed not to care to eat. The mainspring of his home had broken. 
The one who, though sick unto death for years, had been such a 
force and strength at home, holding up the noblest and highest 



HORACE GREELEV MEMORIAL 



35 



examples to her children, teaching us that truth must be followed 
at any cost yet reaching down in womanly tenderness to the smallest 
animal, or going out in the snow, though sick herself, to protect 
some poor drunken man whom the boys were pelting, telling me 
never to laugh at such a one. for they were suffering from a terrible 
disease; yes. the look he had worn when Lincoln was killed came 
back to stay. The heart that could love and work for others could 
break when the highly-strung chords were strained too far. I 
have had to listen to long explanations about his disappointed am- 
bition. To die or live for the good of his laboring brothers and 
sisters was the only ambition I could ever discover in that great 
loving heart. He had no tears to shed at his wife's funeral. But 
as he turned away from the simple plot at Greenwood he said : 
" That vault will be opened for me in less than a month." And it 
was not the first of his prophecies to be sadly fulfilled. 

Years afterwards a society man told me how one evening, near 
midnight, when Delmonico's was filled with gay pleasure-seekers, 
he caught sight for one moment, in the light which streamed across 
the pavement from the doorway, of an old man in a white coat 
carrying the baskets of two little ragged girls, evidently taking them 
to a place of shelter from the storm. So do I love to picture him 
again. The world of the prosperous and thoughtless was little 
aft'ected by his life, but as he fades into the darkness of the night 
of oblivion, I like to think of him as one who desired ever to bring 
the homeless and wretched to shelter, and to carry burdens for them. 

ADDRESS OF DANIEL P. HAYS 

Daniel P. Hays, who had been a neighbor of Mr Greeley for 
many years, told of first meeting him at the farm of Abram J. 
Quinby, where Mr Greeley spent his summers before buying the 
farm that was afterward his home. 

" I remember him as a man of a kind and loving nature, who felt 
strongly the brotherhood of man. He stands out in my memory 
as a character almost divine, and in what he did for humanity he 
was greater than presidents or kings. 

" In what he contributed to the election of Abraham Lincoln and 
the freeing of the slaves he was one of the greatest men the country 
has ever produced. He did not sign his name to the Emancipation 
Proclamation, but he labored for it for years, and his work was 
one of the great contributory causes that made that proclamation 
possible. 



3<) THE UNUEKSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

" lie was a national and world-wide ciiaracter and yet was a 
friend of the humblest." 

Mr James Wood and (icneral lulwin A. Merritt gave the assem- 
blage their personal reminiscences of Horace Greeley. 

The exercises were interspersed with appropriate music rendered 
by the .Si 'i'homas Mandolin Club of Pleasantville. consisting cl 
Miss Beatrice Grit'lin, piano, and mandolin players as follows : the 
Misses Anna C. Dicket, Margaret B. Moehmer, Mary V. McCormac, 
Helen R. Moore, Elma C. Connor, Mary A. McCarthy, Katharine 
M. McCarthy and Elsa A. Doll. 

Later the ladies of Chappaqua served tea to the visitors; among 
them were Mrs Bristol, Mrs Turner. Mrs McKesson, Mrs Erlich, 
Mrs Busselle, j\lrs Guinzburg, Mrs Mackay and Mrs Cowperth- 
waite. 

After the reception the guests were asked to meet at the west 
side of the railway station, near the old Pines Bridge road, where 
Mrs Clendenin had chosen the spot for the erection of a monument 
to her father. It is near the route taken by Washington's retreating 
troops after the defeat at White Plains. 

After the group of Greeley voters had been photographed and 
some time spent in examining the Greeley relics, the assemblage 
proceeded to the site chosen for the Greeley statue, where the loca- 
tion had been railed off and a small platform laid. The populace 
of neighboring Westchester villages was out in force to witness the 
interesting ceremonies. Mr Bristol then spoke as follows: 

ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT JOHN L D. BRISTOL 

Tradition has given to some localities of our country the designa- 
tion of hallowed ground. This monumental square should be in- 
cluded. Here Washington's army passed, after the defeat at the ■ 
battle of White Plains. No trappings of modern warfare — the, 
gaudy uniform, the waving of regimental banners, the martial ' 
strains of military bands, or any of the paraphernalia characteristic' 
of annies — shared that long and weary retreat of hardship and ' 
suffering. On this same old Revolutionary Pines Bridge road, but 
a little way farther on, still stands the Quaker meeting house of 
Chappaqua. There Washington halted with his wounded. The 
church became a hospital, its pews the cots of the wounded, its 
prayers the last feeble words of dying patriots; and yet, amid all 
these terrible circumstances of war, from which a fatal depression, 
despondency and discouragement could well have had their birth, 







JOHN I. D. BRISTOL 



President Chappaqua Historical Society. To his efforts are due the statue 
and permanent memorial to Greeley at Chappaqua 



HORACE GREEI.EY MEMORIAL 37 

the sublime love of country remained, and the struggle for liberty 
and independence went on to a grandly successful close. What a 
lesson all of this for every lover of our wonderful Commonwealth. 

Through every privation, and through suffering that can never 
be told, the men of the Revolution were the creators of our country. 
With the dawn of its second century, that nation's existence was 
threatened. Among the many illustrious names of its saviors that 
of Horace Greeley will ever be associated. 

And it is well, indeed, that here in Chappaqua, with all the recol- 
lections that cluster about his name, where he had his home for so 
many years, and in this historic valley that he loved ; and where, 
amid adjacent parks to be dressed in the living beauty of the 
landscaping art. nature can well be said to slumber upon a bed of 
scenic loveliness — we erect a monument to the man whose memory 
we revere. 

During the later years of his life, wdien he had become a mighty 
power in the progression of the nation's greatness, his preeminence, 
above and beyond all misrepresentation, detraction, ridicule, and 
the ever slow-growing faith to newer and better things, was every- 
where conceded. He grew into the hearts of his countrymen not at 
a bound but by degrees. 

The ages are ages of slow transition ; but there are times when 
in the culmination of mighty events evolution moves faster — when 
men see clearer — when even the conscience of a great nation is 
suddenly enlightened, and the long-buried right looms up among 
the minds of its people as the sudden flash from a beacon light 
sheds its clear beams over the waves and mists of a dangerous coast. 
The writings of Horace Greeley were the beacon rays of encourag- 
ing truth that reached the farmer boy when the labors of the day 
were over, as well as the college student in the hours of his studies. 

Horace Greeley ajjpcaled to no limited class; but. as his mind 
was above all creeds and all party platforms, the manifestations of 
his mentality were for all normal men without distinction of race 
or condition. There is a simj^le explanation in all of this: he lived 
through his higher faculties and knew not the selfishness and the 
perverted ego that ever lessen innate greatness. Such men are of 
a strength and stature to seize the torch of truth that occasionally 
flashes into being among humanity's millions, and shed its rays to 
the inner consciousness of every minrl capable of thought. The 
underlying cause of the greatness of Horace Greeley lay in his 
dignity of character, his simplicity, kindliness, courage, steadfast- 
ness, his wonderful love of right, his s[)lendid benevolence, and his 



38 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OP' NEW YORK 

universal love for his fellowmcn. To him Chappaqua and the 
nation this day dedicate the nnjnunient that is to arise upon this 
historic sjjot ; and it would he well for future ages that it hear the 
inscription : 

TO 

HORACE GREELEY 

THE MOST EXALTED PRIEST IN THE CHURCH 

OF THE 

ItKOTHEKIIOOI) OF MAN 

Mr G. D. Mackay followed, and at the close of his happy remarks 
he displayed a silvered spade with ebony handle, upon which was 
an engraved plate, which he presented to Mrs Gabrielle Greeley 
Clendenin and conducted her within the rail. Mrs Clendenin then 
took the spade and broke the ground for the site of the statue. 

GREETINGS 

The following telegram from Amherst, N. H., was read: 

Old Amherst, which gave him birth, celel)rates with you, who 
gave a home, the hundredth anniversary of Greeley's birth, and 
extends to you most cordial greetings and desires for delightful and 
inspiring exercises. 

The following reply was telegraphed to Amherst: 

Your kindly greetings regarding centenary exercises here to the 
man who made Lincoln President, greatly appreciated and recipro- 
cated. The birthplace and the home of Horace Greeley should ever 
be places of pilgrimage for true Americans. 

The letter which follows was received from the vice president of 
the Southern Society of New York : 

Neiv York, February 7, igii 

Rev. Frank ]\L Clendenin 
The Reetory 

jrestehester. N. Y. 

My Dear P>ro'iiii;k Cli-:.\i)i:n!.\ : 

I regret exceedingly that I was compelled to hurry away from 
the hallowed scenes of yesterday and take this lirst opportunity to 
explain to Mrs Clendenin and yourself that the president of th©j 
Southern Society, Mr McAdoo, notified me only late in the afternoonf 
of Thursday that he would be unable to attend at Chappaqua, 
pursuant to the kind invitation which had been extended to him as 
executive of the Southern colony in this city. 

I had two ai)iK)intments for the afternoon of yesterday, which I 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 39 

had to switch off to the evening, and as they were (|uite important 
1 was compelled to hurry in order to attend to them. I would so 
much have enjoyed remaining for the tea and the exercises at the 
site of the proposed monument. 

I will treasure the recollections of the day and its doings so long 
as life is permitted to me, for so much that I recall of my boyhood 
days is associated with the great man in whose memory we gathered 
on yesterday. 

My father was an old line W hig. as all the people w-ere in my 
section of Virginia. Me was a subscriber to the Log Cabin and after- 
w^ards a subscriber and daily reader of the Tribune. 

The Tribune, if I may use the expression, not at all irreverently, 
w^as his political Bible and he did not hesitate to go anywhere that 
Mr Greeley suggested he should go. 

As a small boy I can remember, on the days that it rained and 
we were not able to go to school, the wanderings of myself and my 
brother to the garret of our old colonial home, then diving and 
delving in the great barrels of copies of the Tribune, all of which 
my father preserved religiously. I dare say that some of them are 
there in that home yet. 

The agricultural feature of the paper appealed to my father, and 
any suggestion that came from the Tribune as to the preparation 
of the land for crops, the sowing and reaping of the same, caring 
for the orchard or vineyard, the flowers of the garden or hedge 
v/as immediately followed. 

Just before General Woodford rose to address the meeting of 
yesterday, I asked him if he would refer in as grateful terms as he 
could to that act which bound Mr Greeley closely to all people of 
the Southland ; and, when in his peroration he summed up in such 
choice words my suggestion, it fired me to the core, and, although 
it would have been rude indeed for me to have said one word, 
particularly in view of the splendid, systematic program which the 
president of the Memorial Association had cut out. I would have 
dearly loved to have said to your good wife, her daughter, to you, 
and to those of the friends of Mr Greeley around you, how grateful 
our people were in appreciation of the magnanimity of this great- 
hearted man who had convictions and the courage of them, and 
regardless of all the pressure brought upon him had performed that 
act which neither General Woodford, the Union League Club of 
this city or many of the staunch friends of Mr Greeley could under- 
stand or fathom. 

I do hope that the opportunity wall soon come to me again to 
meet Mrs Clendenin and I thank you so much for all the courtesy 
which you extended to me as the representative of an organization 
here in this city which is only too glad to go upon record in grateful 
memory of one of the great men of the past century. 

With kindesi regards to Mrs Clendenin, believe me to be 
Sincerely and fraternally yours 

Walter L. McCorkle 



NEW YORK CITY HALL 
MEMORIAL MEETING 



NEW YORK CITY HALL MEMORIAL MEETING 

Flags flew from every staff on the city hall in honor of the 
(jreeley centenary, and a number of buildings in Printing House 
square, notably the Tribune Building, were decked with flags and 
bunting. 

The decorations of the aldermanic chamber, in which the meeting 
was held, were arranged under the direction of City Clerk P. J. 
Scully. The chamber was draped with flags, and here and there 
was hung a portrait of the great editor. One huge banner bearing 
tb.e arms of the municipality was suspended from the middle of the 
gallery railing, directly in front of the entrance, and in the middle 
of the escutcheon, surrounded by the beavers and barrels of the old 
Dutch settlers, with the solemn Indian on one side and the sailor 
on the other, was a picture of Greeley. Another picture was hung 
in the middle of a large national flag behind the president's chair 
on the highest platform of the dais, and the desk at which the pre- 
siding officer sat was similarly draped wilth the stars and stripes. 

Almost every seat in the chamber was filled, although the hurried 
preparations did not allow for timely public notice that such a meet- 
ing would be held. 

Besides the speakers of the occasion, there were present Ex- 
congressman Thomas J. Creamer, John Quincy Adams 3d, sec- 
retary of the Municipal Art Commission, William O'Connor, sec- 
retary to the president of the board of aldermen, Patrick J. Scully, 
the city clerk, Francis P. Bent, vice chairman of the board of alder- 
men, Supreme Court Justice Woods, of Brooklyn. Louis E. Stern, 
William Erving, and many other old friends and admirers of Mr 
Creeley whose names w"ere not recorded. 

Through a misunderstanding, the Chappaqua Memorial commit- 
tee were of the impression that the city authorities were making 
l)reparations for the city hall meeting and therefore had made no 
arrangements for speakers. When on January 3rst this error was 
realized. Mr Eriich was commissioned to enlist the activities of 
Mr Albert E. Henschel toward getting speakers and making general 
arrangements for the city hall meeting. On the morning of Feb- 
ruary 1st Mr Henschel received the following letter: 

My Dear Hrn.schel : 

I do not know whether Mr Mitchel has arranged for speaking. 
Will you take the meeting in hand ? as I shall be at Chappaqua where 
I am to speak. Would suggest as speakers. Hon. John Purroy 
Mitchel, Albert E. Henschel, Esq., General Stewart L. Woodford, 

43 



44 'i'llJ' UNIVKKSITV OF THE STATli OF NEW YORK 

Jiul^^c Grcenbaum. St Clair McKelway, Professor \V. E. DuBois, 
|()sci)h J I. Clioalc, Joel lieiiton, I'ouglikeepsie, Chauncey M. Depew 
and others. 

Very sincerely 

Jacoi; Eklich 

Mr Henschel immediately set to work telephoning and scurrying 
about. It was extremely fortunate that General Horatio C. King 
was able to set aside his professional labors to prepare the historic 
address for this occasion. Hut he was instrumental also in securing 
the attendence of General Daniel E. Sickles. 

Mr Don C. Seitz, of the World, was requested to speak, but he sug- 
gested, in his stead, the editor in chief of the Evening World, Mr 
John McNaught. Mr William McAdoo, who is now Secretary of 
the Treasury, was secured through the kindly offices of Mr Stewart 
G. Gibboney. As the then president of the board of aldermen, Mr 
John Purroy Mitchel, was prevented by official duties from pre- 
siding, he deputed the vice chairman of the board, Mr Francis P. 
Bent, to take his place. 

OPENING ADDRESS BY ALBERT E. HENSCHEL 

The Horace Greeley memcrial committee of the Chappaqua His- 
torical Society has devohed upon me the honorable function of 
representing them in these memorial exercises and, in their name 
and behalf. I bid you welcome. 

The hundredth anniversary of Horace Greeley's birth might well 
receive fitting recognition in this historic, public center, so close to 
Printing House square, whence that great and good man exerted 
his lofty influence as editor, statesman, philanthropist and patriot. 
We, the beneficiaries of his untiring work, are met in reverent grat- 
itude to pay tribute to his memory, to recount the things he has done 
for us and to profit by the lessons of his life. 

lie was above all a typical American, an exemplar of purity in 
thought and action, of wdiom Lincoln said, " I consider him inca- 
pable of corruption or falsehood." 

His life was dedicated to the advancement of his fellowman, and 
journalism was to him only a means to this end. If he desired 
office, it was not for selfish aggrandizement but to ])romote the 
public cause. The Tribune, which he founded, was made the 
forum for free discussion. It became the reservoir of the best and 
most reliable information — a i)opular university. The personal 
influence of his pen has not been exceeded since his day. The ser- 
vice for which he will be best remembered is his successful warfare 
on slavery. He gave us Abraham Lincoln. When the civil con- 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 45 

flict was over, he preached amnesty, reconciliation, forgiveness — 
to make this reconstructed Union a nation leased on brotherly love. 
Now, that the wounds of that dread contest are well-nigh healed, we 
behold in southern prosperity, the prophecies and hopes of Horace 
Greeley fulfilled. 

Greeley was a practical idealist. He labored for free homesteads 
for the landless on the public domaiti, protection to American in- 
dustries, cheap postage, the construction of the Pacific railroads, 
irrigation and many other internal improvements. He was the 
strongest advocate and truest friend of the rights of labor, freedom 
of conscience, the sacredness of the family tie, and he encouraged 
all who were struggling for liberty anywhere in the world. He 
loved farming and handicraft. He opposed wrong, cruelty, oppres- 
sion, injustice. Slavery of mind or body was his abomination; he 
opposed capital punishment, denounced the re[)U(liation of state 
debts or failure to pay interest on them, and execrated officials who 
were faithless to the public trust. 

Our civilization has absorbed much of his teachings. 

Charles A. Dana said of him : " What a noble and useful career 
it was. No citizen has ever exceeded him in virtue, in fidelity to 
the principles of freedom and progress, in unswerving devotion to 
this republic, or in love for that great unity of humanity, in which 
every individual is but a fragment, an atom, seen for the passing 
hour, and living and acting but to disappear at last." 

\Vhat Mr Dana said of him was typical of the expressions of the 
press generally. Thus we find Mr Greeley referred to as the 
" noblest American." the " foremost reformer," the " friend of the 
millions," as " greater than his generation," as " the faithful servant 
of the people " and as " the friend of humanity." 

As time goes on, Horace Greeley's work will be more and more 
appreciated and recognized. The great force of his life continues 
because all his labors were grounded in the immutable principles of 
truth, benevolence and justice. 

It is now with great pleasure that T introduce to you the pre- 
siding officer of this meeting, the Hon. Francis P. Bent. 

Mr Bent thereupon assumed the duties of chairman in a brief 
address, expressing his thanks for the distingui.?hed honor of pre- 
siding upon such an historic occasion. Chairman Bent then intro- 
duced General Horatio C. King, of Brooklyn, as the " Soldier, 
patriot and statesman, eminently qualified by his walk in life and 
the services he had rendered to his country, to deliver the historic 
oration on Horace Greeley." 



4^ Till". i'.\i\ iiksiT'*' ()|- -rill-: siath oi- .\i;\\ m'kk 

ADDRESS UF GENERAL HORATIO C. KING 

From the humble cottage of a poor country farmer to the can- 
didacy for President of the United States, from a tramj) journeyman 
printer to the head of the editorial fraternity in the metr(Ji)olis and 
nation, are transitions scarcely possible in any nation other than 
our own great repul)lic. ( )ne hundred years ago today this pe- 
culiarly American ])roduct was born in a one-story and gambrel- 
roofed farmhouse at Amherst, N. H. The parents appear to have 
had no higher aim for him than that afforded by the vicinage and 
were ready to apprentice him to the village blacksmith, but Horace 
had higher ambitions and desired to learn the trade of printer. The 
])()or returns from the New Hampshire farm compelled the removal 
of the family to West Haven, Vt. Bright, active, energetic and 
precocious, at eleven years of age young Greelev sought employment 
as a[)prentice in a newspaper oftu-e in the town of Whitehall. N. Y.. 
and was rejected because of his youth. This was in 1822. In 1826 
he answered an advertisement in the Northern Spectator at East 
Poultney, Vt., where he worked for six months for his board and 
thereafter for about four years for $40 a year and board. The 
paper suspended and left him without a job. He had lived most 
sparingly, sending almost his entire earnings to his bankrupt father. 
He was then about twenty years old and was thrown upon the world 
as a journeyman printer. Up to this time he had not worn an over- 
coat, but on his leaving East Poultney his friends ])resented him 
with a second-hand one. He had fourteen months of this expe- 
rience, working on the farm at Erie. Pa., to which his father had 
removed, when he could not find employment at his trade. His 
education was confined entirely to the common school, but he was 
an omnivorous reader, entered heartily into politics, was prominent 
in the village debating society, was looked upon as somewhat of an 
oracle, and did some part of the editorial work on the Spectator. 

His ambition craved greater opportunities and with all his worldly 
goods in a bundle slung over his shoulder, he walked to Bufifalo, 
thence went by canal boat or towpath to Albany and by tug to New 
York. He had $to in his pocket when he entered the great city 
in 183 1. For fourteen months he did compositor's work in variou-^ 
newspaper and job offices, including the Evening Post, the Commcr- i 
cial Advertiser and the Spirit of the Times, on the last of which he 
served longest. In 1833 he made his first independent venture 'in 
conjunction with Francis V. Story and printed a penny i)aper under 
the title of the Morning Post, which died in three weeks. But the 
type and fixtures remained, and became the foundation of a job 




GENERAL HORATIO C. KING 

Principal orator at City Hall, New York, February 3, 1911 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 47 

office which the two young men ran. The firm prospered and after 
another year (in 1834) the thirst for editorship grew strong again. 
He had indulged it to some extent on the papers named. And now, 
with about $3000 capital, he, in conjunction with his brother-in-law, 
started the New Yorker, a literary weekly. About this time Bennett 
asked him to join with him in starting the New York Herald, which 
he declined, preferring to go it alone. He published and edited 
the New Yorker for seven years. His success attracted the atten- 
tion of William H. Seward and Thurlow Weed, who engaged him 
to edit the Jefifersonian, a Whig journal in Albany, until 1839, when 
it was discontinued. In the Harrison campaign he published another 
political sheet called the Log Cabin, which did much to promote the 
election of W'illiam Henry Harrison in 1840. Its circulation reached 
the unprecedented number of ninety thousand. He had become a 
leader, a man to be consulted and an influential political factor. The 
paper suspended with the election of Harrison, but after a few 
weeks was resumed, continuing until on the loth of April, 1841, 
it was merged in the New York Tribune. 

This brief resume of his early life brings us to the period wdien 
he entered upon the great work of his career, for save a single 
term in Congress, Mr Greeley never swerved from his duties as 
editor and political leader. His love for country life led to the 
purchase of a farm at Chappaqua, a happy resort and rest from 
the exacting and exhausting duties of a great newspaper. 

It is on his development of the Tribune that his chief claim to 
greatness rests. Zabriskie in his life of Greeley says : " He was 
essentially if not exclusively a publicist. Private and personal mat- 
ters had no interest for him, as compared with public affairs, the 
politics of his country, the great movements of the nation and the 
questions of reform which related to social progress. He wanted to 
be and he rejoiced to be an editor, that he might bring to bear a 
great engine of information and propulsion upon these worldwide 
and human interests. In this endeavor it has been well said, ' he 
put away from him all thirst for renown, all appetite for wealth, 
all desire for personal advantage. He never counted the cost of his 
words ; he never inquired what course would pay or what would 
please his subscribers. He held in magnificent disdain the meaner 
sort of editor who strives only to print what will sell and held him 
as bad as the parson who preaches to fill the pews.' . . . He 
was a true knight errant, because his lance was always at the service 
of the weak, the downtrodden and the wronged." 

It is not my province to give a mere biographical sketch of this 



48 'I'lii". ^^■|\•|■:KSIT^• oi'' riii-: si ai !•; ()!• m^w yokk 

^ix'dl American. This i> accessible lo you all. 1 desire instead to 
recall a few of the most striking episodes in the life of this distin- 
guished American. Jhe first to which I will refer was the contest 
in the second Republican national convention held in Chicago in 
i860. So great w^is the po])ularity of Senator Seward with his 
party in the l^ast that ])ractically no other candidacy was thought 
possible. The break betw^een Seward and Greeley made the latter 
a somewhat strong and unexpected opponent of the New York 
Senator. His commission as a delegate from Oregon gave him the 
opportunity he sought, and he was strenuous in his cfiforts, visiting 
and addressing the delegations against Seward and in favor of Bates 
of Missouri. Those w-ho came to the convention not pledged for 
Seward awaited the consolidation of the opposition and the ballot 
disclosed the strength of the several favorites thus: Seward 173^ 
votes, Lincoln 102. Simon Cameron 50^/, Chase 49, Bates 48 and 
a few scattering. There had loomed high in the horizon during the 
previous two or three years a quaint character, who was later to 
occupy a place in the hearts of his countrymen second only to that 
of Washington. He had been in the Illinois legislature; he had 
been one term in Congress without arousing special comment ; but 
his oratorical contest with the little giant, Stephen A. Douglas, for a 
seat in the United States Senate had at last attracted w-idespread 
notice and comment. His defeat for the senatorship made him a 
presidential possibility. It was Abraham Lincoln, whom the West 
pushed to the front as the dark horse of the convention. On the 
third ballot Seward had but t8o votes, and Lincoln had increased 
to 2313^, lacking only five of majority. Then follow^ed the usual 
panic and stampede and the nomination of Mr Lincoln was made 
unanimous. While Lincoln w^as not Greeley's cahdidate and Bates 
was, to Mr Greeley was attributed Lincoln's nomination. Henry 
J. Raymond, another great editor, wrote to his paper, the New York 
Times, from Auburn, on his return homeward from the convention, 
and gave the credit wholly to Mr Greeley's influence and efforts, 
imputing these efforts to a " personal hatred secretly cherished for 
years." This assumption was repudiated by Mr. Greeley's friends, 
but his opposition was imdoubtedly the result of the severance of the 
so-called partnership of Seward. Weed & Greeley in 1854. 

The second episode to which I desire to call your attention is 
the attitude of the great editor with his enormously influential 
journal immediately ])rcce(iing and during the first year or so of 
the Civil War. Mr Greeley was not alone in his belief that the 
South w^ould not carry out the threats of attempted withdrawal 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 49 

from the Union. He shrank from the ordeal and expressed the 
" hope never to live in the Union whereof one section was pinned 
to the other by bayonets." The familiar expression is also attributed 
to him, " Let the wayward sisters depart in peace " ; and, whether 
true or not. it is simply on a par with the answer to me by Edwin 
M. Stanton when, in the winter of i860, I was a law student in 
his A\'ashington office — "Oh, I would let the South go; they will 
be clamoring to get back in three years." 

Public sentiment was greatly unsettled as to the best policy, which 
was particularly true of New York City, whose commercial pros- 
perity rested so largely on southern trade. I was witness to this 
uncertainty and to the radical change which followed the attack on 
Sumter. I had left my home in Washington to continue my law 
studies in New York City, and had gone to the courthouse about 
10 a. m. on some professional duty. \\ hen I passed through Print- 
ing House square, all was quiet and peaceable. An hour or so 
later, when I emerged from the courthouse, I found the square 
alive with more than twenty thousand noisy and aggressive men, 
directing their attention to the Sun office, shouting for the display 
of the national flag. News of Sumter had been flashed over the 
wires. Its magic had consolidated public opinion in favor of the 
preservation of the Union, and suppressed all sentiment in favor 
of secession. The mob, earnest but not angry, demanded a like 
display from the Tribune, then the Times, next the World, then 
the Commercial Advertiser, the staid old Evening Post and finally 
tlie Journal of Commerce away down in Pearl street, near Wall 
street ferry. There was much hustling and some delay in securing 
the necessary bunting, but the unfurling of each flag was received 
with cheers, and, when the last ensign floated from the Journal of 
Commerce staff, the vast crowd melted away as speedily as it had 
come together. 

In the prosecution of the war, Mr Greeley made mistakes as did 
thousands of others. One of these was in urging our undrilled and 
unskilled battalions to an encounter with the Confederates in a 
defensive position of their own choosing. " On to Richmond " was 
not without its good results, for it disclosed to the people that the 
war was not to be a picnic, but that the South was in deadly earnest. 
Mr Seward's prophecy that the war would be over in sixty days 
lulled people to sleep, and even President Lincoln appears not to 
have realized the stupendous task before him. When Senator John 
Sherman sent for his brother, General Sherman, who had been 
teaching in Louisiana, and they together had an interview with Mr 



50 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Lincoln, (jeneral Sherman told him of his observations in Louisiana, 
that men were drilling and getting ready for a protracted war, to 
which Mr Lincoln nonchalantly replied, " Oh, well, I guess we will 
be able to kcc]) house " • and Sherman went away disappointed 
and angry. 

The newspapers did a great work in keeping up the martial spirit, 
encouraging enlistments, backing the President and Congress, and 
none greater than the 'JVibune, but there were times when the 
patience of the ot^ccrs at the front was sorely tried by the improper 
information of projected movements which leaked out through the 
zeal of overzcalous reporters. The President, too, had his troubles 
from that i)art of the press, including the Tribune, which urged upon 
iiim the issuance of an emancipation proclamation before he deemed 
that an opportune time had arrived. It was to Mr Greeley's open 
letter in the Tribune, addressed to the President, which he entitled 
the " Prayer of Twenty Millions " — an appeal for the immediate 
emancipation of all slaves-, that Mr Lincoln made his famous reply, 
in which he said in part: "My paramount object is to save the 
Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery. . . . What I 
do about slavery and the colored race T do because I believe it helps 
to save this Union, and what I forbear I forbear because I do not 
believe it would help to save the Union. ... I have here stated 
my purpose according to my views of official duty, and I intend 
no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men 
everywhere should be free." 

That Mr Lincoln was right we now are convinced in the light of 
history. The army in the East had met with almost continued 
defeat. The first Bull Run, the wretched disaster at Rail's Blufif, 
the terrible Seven Days' battles on the Peninsula and the withdrawal 
of McClcllan's army; the frightful fiasco of General Pope with the 
Army of Virginia, which closed with a second defeat at 
P.ull Pun, gave nf> opportune moment for the issuance of a procla- 
mation which could not affect slavery within the Confederate lines. 
So Mr Lincoln waited the outcome of Lee's invasion of Maryland. 
By their frequent victories, the southern soldiers and their people 
had come to regard themselves as invincible. Elated with success 
and encouraged by the blundering of the War Department, the 
southern army crossed the Potomac. Victory on northern soil 
insured the recognition of the Confederacy and the early end of the 
war. The disastrous check by McClellan at South Mountain and the 
awful slaughter and defeat at Antietam and retirement of Lee's 
army to Virginia afforded to Mr Lincoln the opportunity to launch 



HORACE GREELKY MEMORIAL 5 1 

the proclamation, when it would he received and read by the dis- 
heartened South after great and unexpected defeat, as well as by 
the world at large, with special emphasis. 

Mr CJreeley's " Prayer of Twenty Millions " to the President was 
written in August ; Mr Lincoln's reply was dated August 226. ; the 
battle of Antietam was fought on the i6th and 17th of September; 
and the preliminary luiiancipation Proclamation was issued on the 
22d of September, or- within a month of Mr Greeley's appeal. 

The third and last episode upon which I shall dwell exhibits in 
the highest degree the greatness of his character. No one doubts 
now that the capture of the fleeing President of the dead Confed- 
eracy was more unfdrtunate for the North than for the captured. 
In the light of history it was a blunder. When, after the close of 
the war, Thompson, Ex-secretary of the Interior before the war 
and a high official in the Confederacy, was captured, it is related that 
the Assistant Secretary of War asked Mr Lincoln what he should 
do with him. In his quaint and characteristic way Mr Lincoln is 
said to have replied : " Well, sir, if I had a wildcat by the tail and 
he wanted to get away, I'd let him go; wouldn't you?" He prob- 
ably wished ]\Ir Davis had succeeded in making his escape. The 
head of the Confederacy became a white elephant on our hands. 
It is true that his close confinement was due in part to the angry 
feeling in the North and West over the assassination of Mr Lincoln, 
but the protracted delay in bringing him to trial was a blunder and 
inexcusable. While unsuccessful rebellion is regarded by many as 
treason, it is not so judged by the world at large, and it was evident 
that Mr Davis could not be dealt with as a traitor. He was im- 
prisoned for nearly two years and during that period was subjected 
to some unnecessary severity. At last Mr Greeley grew weary of 
the dilatory movements of the Government and, backed by men of 
prominence and means, he demanded the release of the Ex-presi- 
dent on bail. He went to Richmond for that purpose, and in open 
court signed the bail bond. The country rang with the censure of 
narrow and short-sighted men. The far-sighted editor had really 
relieved the nation of a disgraceful dilemma and ought to have 
received unstinted praise. But even some members of the Union 
League Club took up the matter and commenced proceedings for 
his expulsion. This brought out the full force of Mr Greeley's 
righteous indignation. The strength and pungency of his pen were 
never better evinced than in this letter from which I c|Uote : 

I shall not attend your meeting this evening. ... I do not 
recognize you as capable of judging or even fully apprehending me. 



52 Tin-: i'xi\ERSiTV f)F Tin-: static ok ni-:\v vokk 

You evidently regard me as a weak sentimentalist, misled by a 
maudlin philosoi)hy. 1 arraign you as narrow-minded blockheads, 
who would like to be useful to a great and good cause, but dfjii't 
know how. Your attempt to base a great enduring ])arty on the 
heat and wrath necessarily engendered by a bloody civil war is as 
though you should plant a colony on an iceberg which had somehow 
drifted into a tropical ocean. I tell you here that, out of a life 
earnestly devoted to the good of human kind, your children will 
recollect my going to Richmond and signing the bail bond as the 
wisest act, and will feel that it did more for freedom and humanity 
than all of you were competent to do, though you had lived to the 
age of Methuselah. I ask nothing of you, then, but that you pro- 
ceed to your end by a brave, frank, manly way. Don't sidle off 
into a mild resolution of censure, but move the expulsion which you 
purposed and which I deserve if I deserve any reproach what- 
ever. ... I propose to fight it out on the line I have held from 
the day of Lee's surrender. So long as any man was seeking to 
overthrow our government, he was my enemy; from the hour in 
which he laid down his arms, he was my formerly erring coun- 
tryman. 

The club held its meeting but refrained from either expulsion or 
censure. 

I must leave to others to enlarge upon other features and inci- 
dents of his career. One of the saddest pages to me in the political 
history of this nation was his futile effort to reach the presidency, 
and my heart aches even now when I recall the pitiless attacks made 
upon him by the opposition press and particularly in the caustic 
and virulent cartoons of Thomas Nast in the then Republican Har- 
per's Weekly. There was one particularly bright star in all the 
somber darkness. Henry \\^ard Beecher wrote to him : 

You may think, amidst clouds of smoke and dust, that all your 
old friends who parted company with you in the late campaign 
will turn a momentary difference into a life-long alienation. It 
will not be so. I speak for myself, and also from what I perceive 
in other men's hearts. Your mere political influence may for a time 
be impaired, but your power for good in the far wider fields of 
industrial economy, social and civil criticism, and the general well- 
being of society, will not be lessened. l)ut augmented. 

Mr Greeley barely survived this terrible campaign; his wife fell 
ill and died in the closing weeks of his canvass. After the election. 
he was stricken with severe illness and partially recovered so that 
he made an effort to resume work, but in a few days was compelled 
to return home, and died November 20, 1872. 

His career has no close parallel in American history. The stories 
told of his eccentricities- would fill a volume, but his great heart and 



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mind were always true to the highest ideals. His unexpected and 
well-nigh tragic death silenced or softened the asperities of his 
political enemies. The whole city appeared to ha\e turned out for 
his funeral. The body lay in state in the city hall, where it was 
viewed by many thousands who were not attracted by mere curiosity. 
Says a contemporary writer: "The poor slied tears over him; the 
laboring man stopped work that he might pay a last tribute of 
respect to him who spent forty years in working hard for the benefit 
of workers. A more spontaneous manifestation of universal sorrow 
lias not been seen in this generation." 

We do well to celebrate the centenary of such a man. 

ADDRESS OF MAJOR GENERAL DANIEL E. SICKLES 

There was much cheering when Major General Daniel E. Sickles 
entered the aldermanic chamber, hobbling on his crutches and muf- 
fled in a military great-coat. General Horatio C. King hastened to 
the veteran and gave him an assisting arm to the platform. 

When the long burst of applause had subsided, General Sickles said 
he would speak from his chair, " because of a little accident that 
occurred at the Battle of Gettysburg."^ 

The General recalled the thousands who wept at the bier of 
Horace Greeley when he lay in state in the city hall not so many 
years ago. 

Greeley and he, the general continued, were not always friends. 
After he had raised several regiments among the Democrats of 
New York, he said Greeley attacked him, saying that he was such 
a rabid Democrat he would be sure to go over to Jeff Davis at the 
first opportunity. He had offered to disband the regiment and 
retire himself, he declared, if his presence in the army inconven- 
ienced the President in the least degree. Rut Lincoln laughed his 
qualms away. 

When the actions of his troops at ^^'illiamsburg and several other 
battles had convinced Greeley that they were as loyal as any in the 
army, the editor opened a subscription to present him with a sword, 
" better than I could buy myself," as the General i)ut it. Greeley 
and he then shook hands, and they remained friends from that day 
to the end. 

" Horace Greeley will be most conspicuous in the history of 
American journalism; but he was more than a journalist. He was 



^ The general's reference was to a wound he had received on the second 
da\- of the battle, which necessitated the amputation of one leg. 

General Sickles died in New York City May 2, 1914, aged 90 years. 



54 THE UNIVKKSITY OK THE STATE OE XEW VUKK 

a character by himself. He was a statesman, intelligent, able, inde- 
pendent, patriotic, courageous, usually right, sometimes wrong, 
always frank and generous in dealing with enemies as well as 
friends. 

" I am glad to pay this tribute to my friend, an ornament to New 
York and to America, who will be honored and remembered for 
many generations to come." 

Chairman Bent : It is highly appropriate that we should hear from 
a representative of the South and a gentleman who has rendered 
distinguished public service to the people of the two states, New 
York and New Jersey, in the way of great public imi)rovements. 
I have the honor to introduce Mr William (j. McAdoo. 

ADDRESS OF WILLIAM G. McADOO 

As a southerner, I am glad to join in honoring the memory of the 
great man whose one hundredth birthday we now celebrate. True 
genius was personified in Horace Greeley, and with it was blended 
a certain measure of that eccentricity which seems inseparable from 
the genuine type. But these eccentricities count as nothing when 
compared with the rare qualities which made him one of the most 
conspicuous men of his time. 

No two men on the northern side of the great conflict l)cLween 
the states, hold a higher place in the esteem and admiration of the 
South than Lincoln and Greeley. Wholly unlike in temperament, 
they were amazingly alike in their love for the common people, 
their detestation of wrong in all of its phases, their unselfish devo- 
tion to the public weal, their lofty and inspired patriotism. Each 
had courage of the highest order, a quality which, in its physical 
as well as in its moral sense, appeals to the spirit of the South. 
Neither Lincoln, nor Greeley was an Abolitionist before the war; 
each was willing to leave slavery undisturbed in those states where 
the constitution sanctioned it ; each was opposed to its extension 
into the national territory ; yet. when the war came, they were 
unflinching partizans and fought with the implacable resolution of 
high purpose and deep conviction. We respect and honor them for 
that. They w^ere not demagogues, but nioi. In their great souls 
there was not room for hatred, malice or base passion. Their love 
for humanity and justice dominated them, and was the mainspring I 
of every action. 

I do not mean by this to claim that Greeley was as great a man 
as Lincoln. Greeley had weaknesses and vanities arising from a 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 55 

craving for political power which led him into many errors, and 
which have, for a time, obscured his greater qualities and his claims 
to the high place in history which he unquestionably deserves. Lin- 
coln's character was singularly free from these defects. 

Une of the acts of Greeley's life that provoked the harshest con- 
demnation at the time was his signing the bail bond of Jefferson 
Davis ; and yet, to all men who admire heroism, this act alone should 
establish Greeley's claim to greatness. It required a higher courage 
to do this than to charge the belching cannon on the heights of Get- 
tysburg. Greeley had everything to lose and nothing to gain in 
doing it. His sense of justice, of humanity, of patriotism, com- 
pelled him to it. He vindicated patriotism and constitutional gov- 
ernment at a time when the nation needed inspiring example and 
he accepted serenely the bitter denunciation to which he was sub- 
jected, in the firm belief that history and posterity would do him 
justice. 

I have no patience with the men of the South, if there be any, who 
can not see and appreciate the greatness of Lincoln and Greeley ; 
nor have I any patience with the men of the North, if there be any, 
who can not see and appreciate the greatness of Lee and Jackson. 
Virtue and greatness and patriotism are no longer limited by sec- 
tional lines in this resplendent union of " indissoluble and indestruct- 
ible states." Horace Greeley's life demonstrated that 

" Great truths are portions of the soul of man ; 
Great souls are portions of eternity." 

Chairman Bent : Rev. Leighton Williams, our next speaker, has 
not omitted the study of temporal questions in his zeal for the pro- 
motion of spiritual welfare. I know you will be pleased to hear his 
appreciation of Greeley. 

ADDRESS OF REV. DR LEIGHTON WILLIAMS 
Horace Greeley was a noble yet pathetic figure among the fore- 
most sons of the Republic. It is today one hundred years since his 
birth, and nearly forty years since his too early demise. Yet he 
still lives in the affections of his countrymen. The words of Bayard 
Taylor at the unveiling of his monument in Greenwood cemetery 
are as true now as when he wrote them : 

A Hfe like his can not be lost. That sleepless intelligence is not 
extinguished, though the brain which was its implement is here 
slowly falling to dust ; that helping and forbearing love continues, 
though the heart which it quickened is cold. He lives, not only 



50 THE UNUKKSITV oK THE STATE OF NEW VoKK 

ill the mysterious realm where some power and grander form 
of activity awaited him, but also as an imperishable influence in 
I he jK'ople. Sonicthiiif^ of him has been absorbed in a multitude of 
otiier lives, and will be transmitted to their seed. His true monu- 
ment is as broad as the land he served. This, which you have 
erected over his ashes, is the least memorial of his life. But it 
stands as he himself loved to stand, on a breezy knoll, where he 
could bathe his brow in the shadows of branches and listen to the 
music of their leaves. 

Long will he be remembered as one of the most typical of Amer- 
ica's sons, comi)arable with Benjamin Franklin and Henry Ward 
Beecher, as one of her offspring the most faithfully and broadly 
incarnating what is most worthy in her development. Well do I 
remember his dress and figure in all its picturesque negligence 
and native dignity, a modern Cincinnatus returning from the plow, 
the strap of his bootlegs appearing over the trousers tucked within 
them, the upturned collar of his overcoat, the flowing, high colored 
neckcloth and the broad felt liat shading the rough but kindly coun- 
tenance. He was a true democrat in t!ic social if not in the political 
sense of the term, the sincere and ardent friend of the plain people, 
loyally and lovingly identifying himself with them. He combined 
within his single personality in an unusual degree the threefold ideal 
of liberty, equality and fraternity, which still forms the motto of 
our sister republic of France, and is no less essentially the basal 
principle of our free institutions. 

1 count it a high privilege and honor to represent here today in 
these exercises the ministers of religion in this city. There is also 
a certain personal interest for me in this occasion to which I hope 
you will permit me to allude. Among the group which gathered 
about the "Albany Triumvirate," as it was termed, composed of 
Thurlow Weed, William H. Seward and Horace Greeley, was an I 
uncle of mine, James Bowen, who became a very close and intimate 
associate of all three of the chief leaders. For his sake, as for 
theirs, I am glad to speak today. 

I W'Ould speak briefly of three marked characteristics of Mr Gree- 
ley's personality which illustrate the strength and beauty of his 
religious nature. And first among them may be mentioned his ^ 
enthusiastic idealism. 

Mr Greeley was no Aristotelian, but a Platonist through and 
through. For him, as for the ancient philosopher, ideas had a realj 
existence. W'ith him also intellect was suifused at all times with) 
lofty emotion. His ideas were to him objective realiti?s, his con-j 
victions became great moral causes, to which he gave a boundless 



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CANDIDACY RECEPTION 

At this time Greeley's presidential boom was started 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 57 

enthusiasm and an unquestioning and uncalculating devotion. To 
him they were never mere abstract propositions to be debated by for- 
mal logic with clearness of brain and coldness of heart. Rather did 
they with him. as with Ezekiel in the Valley of Vision, clothe them- 
selves with flesh and stand before him, an army of living men. He 
gave ungrudging advocacy and support to a large variety of new 
and unpopular reforms, to temperance, to vegetarianism, to aboli- 
tion, to early social experiments, like that at Brook Farm, to spirit- 
ualism, or as we now more generally label it, psychic research. On 
all these topics he wrote and spoke courageously, and often with the 
full knowledge of the sacrifice of personal interests which was 
invohed. Hence this letter, such as few could truthfully pen : 
" My Friend: Of course I threw. away the senatorship in 1866 — • 
knowing well that I did so — and did myself great pecuniary harm 
in 1867 by bailing Jeff Davis; but supposing I hadn't done either? 
Either God rules this world or He does not. J l^elieve Fie does. 
Yours, Horace Greeley." 

He was a true knight-errant in journalism, a chevalier without 
fear and without reproach, lacking often, doubtless, in prudence, 
in patience, in perseverance, in tact, but seldom or never in tender- 
ness, in courage or in loyalty. He reminds me strongly in these 
respects of Charles Kingsley and of Charles Dickens. 

A lofty idealism was the atmosphere which he breathed at all 
times, and which gave a certain grandeur to even the dull routine of 
a life of tireless industry and imparted a chaste beauty to all that 
he wrote, so that it might be fittingly said of him, as Samuel John- 
son said of Oliver Goldsmith : " There was almost nothing which 
he did not touch and nothing that he touched that he did not adorn." 

I would speak also of his broad and truly catholic sympathy for 
the poor, the oppressed, the enslaved, the young and the struggling. 
One of his early, boyish encounters was an effort to protect a 
fugitive slave, while the splendid act of later years which proved 
so costly, so almost fatal to his deeply cherished and highly natural 
ambitions, was his signing Jefferson Davis's bail bond. Place these 
two acts in juxtaposition across the span of his whole public career, 
forming as they each do characteristic acts of one or the other of 
the contending factions, then in the throes of a life-and-death strug- 
gle, and you measure the breadth of Mr Greeley's sympathy. 

Of his strong, wholesome interest in the great productive indus- 
tries of the country, agriculture and manufactures, there is not 
time to speak, nor of his kindly sympathy for the cause of labor and 
wise counsels to wage earners. His advice to young men, coined 



58 I 111': INaKKSITY f)F TIM-: S'lA'lK OK XKW YORK 

into the prcjvcrbial phrase, " Go West, young man," is an illustration 
of his clear-sighted interest in the settlement of the western states 
of the Union, while his advocacy, immediately on the close of the 
Civil W ar, of general amnesty and of universal sufifrage witnesses 
to the breadth of his toleration and equal brotherly regard for both 
black and white races at the South. 

Above and beyond the actual state of the Republic, he descried 
the far peaks of a distant commonwealth of man which he ardently 
sought to reach and realize. Thus he pictures it : 

"A community or little world wherein all freely serve, and all are 
amply served; wherein each works according to his tastes or needs, 
and is paid for all he does or brings to pass; wherein education is 
free and common as air and sunshine; wherein drones and sensual- 
ists can not abide the social atmosphere, but are expelled by a quiet, 
wholesome fermentation; wherein humbugs and charlatans find their 
level, and naught but actual service, tested by the severest ordeals, 
can secure approbation, and none but sterling qualities win esteem." 

We do not marvel that such a man should have gathered about 
him a band of able, high-minded men, many of whom have achieved 
well-deserved fame, Ripley and Dana, John Hay and Bayard Tay- 
lor, and others of equal note. 

But the few minutes still allotted to me must be given to a notice 
all too short and inadequate of Mr Greeley's religious opinions, or 
rather of his stand|)oiiit with regard to such matters. 

Like Mr Lincoln, he early broke with many of the strong, dog- 
matic opinions held by his parents and early associates. Neither 
the dogmas of Protestant orthodoxy nor the ecclesiastical institu- 
tions and rites of Christianity had for him strict binding force and 
authority. Nor, on the other hand, was he completely satisfied with 
a rationalistic philosophy and a merely ethical world-plan. He was 
deeply grounded in an experimental idea of religion, and sought, 
with an undiminished ardor throughout his life, for an enlarging 
experience of the unseen world. Two brief quotations from his j 
own words will seem to set forth with clearness his point of view. ^ 
The first citation is from his " .American Conflict " : 

" I ofifer it as my contribution toward a fuller and more vivid 
realization of the truth that God governs this world by moral laws 
as active, immutable and all-pervading as can be operative in any 
other, and that every collusion or compromise with evil must surely 
invoke a prom])t and signal retribution." 

And again, in " Recollections of a Busy Life," he beautifully 
states his own jiersonal hope of immortality : 



1 




Clendenin collection 

A FAVORITli PICTl RH 

From a steel engraving greatly liked l)y the family 



nORACK CRKKLKY MEMORIAL 59 

" So, looking calmly, yet humbly, for that clo-^e of my mortal 
career which can not be far distant, I reverently thank Cjod for 
il.c blessings vouchsafed me in the past ; and, with an awe that is 
not fear and a consciousness of demerit which does not exclude 
hope, await the opening before my steps of the gates of the Eternal 
World." 

1 can not close without pausing for a brief moment to contem- 
plate the sorrow of his last disappointment. He became a candi- 
date for the presidency with high ideals and radiant hopes. In 
the midst of the campaign he was called back to the deathbed of 
his dearly loved wife. Her death was speedily followed by his 
overwhelming defeat at the polls. His own sudden and fatal illness 
occurred within the month. He seemed to drink the cup of human 
woe to its last bitter dregs, and yet how nobly did he pass from 
this earthly and mortal stage. To whom shall we liken him — to a 
Samson Agonistes, to Oedipus at Colonus, or Kmg Lear? Dis- 
crowned and undeceived at last, but not dishonored. 

And yet not so much in sadness as in hopeful seriousness would 
we take leave of one so true and so brave. Of him may we say, 
as says Milton of his hero : 

" Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail 
Or knock the breast ; no weakness, no contempt. 
Dispraise or blame ; nothing but well and fair. 
And what may quiet us in a death so nolile." 

CiiAiRMAX Bkxt: There would be something lacking in these 
memorial exercises if we did not have some printer or editor taking 
part. We have happily with us the editor in chief of the Evening 
World, Mr John McNaught. who will give us some ideas of Mr 
Greeley as a journalist. 

.VDDRESS OF JOHN McNAUGHT. EDITOR OF THE NEW 
" YORK EVENING WORLD 

Horace Greeley is one of the few men who, after doing great 
work in the world, are honored for what they were more than for 
what they did ; a man whose character outshines his fortune, who 
is remembered for his warm humanity, rather than for his service 
or his fame. 

As revealed in journalism, his character was marked by traits of 
such contrariety as to make their union in one person appear like a 
paradox. He had an ability for prompt decision that acted with 
the sureness of an instinct, but was accompanied by a reflective 
power that endowed him with the sageness of a philosopher. He 



6o riiK rNMvicKsrrv of tiik statk of xkw yohk 

had such consistency of temper that hnes of conduct adopted in 
extreme youth were held steadfastly throughout life; yet such was 
the elasticity of his mind that he could make his politics and his 
journalism conform to the demands of the time and the tastes of 
the multitude at every moment. Moreover he had a curious pur- 
])lindness as to little things that was in marked contrast to the 
clearness of his vision of the larger issues of the country and of 
the age. 

By reason of these contrary faculties his philosophy and his 
career ])resent a surprising array of seeming inconsistencies at once 
picturesque and perilous; aberrations of word and of action that 
sometimes amazed his foes and at other times astounded his friends. 

In the main, the clearness of his intellect and the largeness of his 
sympathy enabled him to recognize, to understand and to appreciate 
every great human movement of his time whether at home or 
abroad. He stood not only for the al^olition of slavery but for the 
abolition, as far as possible, of all the hard conditions under which 
labor in his day had to do its work. With an equal zeal he urgerl 
the upbuilding of the West by individual enterprise and welcomed 
from Europe every creed of socialism that tended to increase the 
practice of cooperation and to promote the brotherhood of man. 

Shakspere says " our judgments are a parcel of our fortunes," 
but Greeley's life story refutes the rule. His fortunes were a 
parcel of his judgment. What he did was the inevitable result of 
what he thought. Never was his life more consistent in all its ])arts 
than when it seemed to be inconsistent with environment. 

When the al)olit!on of slavery was the supreme issue of the time, 
he worked with the party that stood for abolition. When a recon- 
ciliation of North and South became the supreme issue, he worked 
with the party that stood for reconciliation. The change was an 
inconsistency in politics, but it was an absolutely consistent per- 
sonality. No act of his life was more in harmony with its guiding 
principle than that of signing the bail bond of Jefiferson Davis. It 
was a re\'c!ation of his soul. 

\\nien he died, men said. " The Tril)une will be his monument." 
but it was a vain saying. No paper could continue his influence 
after he was gone, nor could it remind men of his personality. He 
survives in the brightness of his own fame. Through the night of j_ 
the past his character shines distinct as a star. Our America will 
be very different from what it is before there will ever be needed 
either a newspaper or a monument to impress his memory upon 
the people or to recall to them the inspirations of his genius. 

(■ 



EXERCISES AT GREELEY'S BIRTH- 
PLACE, AMHERST, N. H. 



EXERCISES AT GREELEY'S BIRTHPLACE, 
AMHERST, N. H. 

At Amherst, N. H., Horace Greeley's l)irtlii)hicc, commemorative 
exercises were held I'^bruary 3, 191 1. 

A little way out of town, on the road to the east, still stands the 
(|uaint, story and a half, unpainted New England farmhouse in the 
midst of rocky fields, where Greeley first saw the light of day. The 
house remains unchanged, with its wide, sloping roof and huge 
middle chimney. Airs Clendenin thus describes the birthplace of 
her father: "The little house was built in the old-fashioned way 
of great open fires and hewn timbers; so that it still nestles beside 
the roadway dignified by a tall elm tree, and looking out through 
its small panes of glass over miles and miles of glorious rolling 
country, the sweet air perfumed by the native pine trees ; while 
many a pretentious modern building has fallen into decay before its 
time." Greeley said of the house he was born in : " The house was 
then quite new. It was only modified in our time by filling up, and 
making narrower the old-fashioned fireplace, which having devoured 
all the wood on the farm, ravenously yawned for more." 

Trains, automobiles, sleighs and all means of conveyance brought 
people from near and far to join in the exercises of the day. The 
gathering in the town hall was one of the largest in its history- 
Dinner was prepared by Amherst women and served at 12.30 o'clock 
on the lower floor of the town hall. 

There were a few relics of a century ago in the building, which 
were viewed with interest by the throngs of the curious who visited 
the place, but the more important and interesting mementos of 
Greeley were in the town hall in charge of Rev. C. E. White. They 
consisted of rare old daguerreotypes, papers, letters and other things 
of that nature, once owned by Horace Greeley or relating to him 
and contemporaneous with his early days. 

The anniversary committee having the exercises in charge were: 
Rev. Charles Ernest White, chairman. Judge William D. Clarke, 
Representative L. F. Wyman, Edward P. Fowle and Harold H. 
Wilkins. 

The exercises were opened at 2 o'clock, on the second floor of the 
town hall, which, by the way, is the historic courthouse which 
erstwhile rang with the eloquence of Daniel Webster, of Franklin 
Pierce, and other noted sons of New Hampshire. 

A brief, felicitous address of welcome was delivered by Rev. 
Charles E. White, as chairman, who concluded by calling upon Rev. 

63 



(i4 "!■'"•- i-\'i\i-:i<snv of the statij: of nkw ^okk 

Dr Tliomas Chalmers, pastor of the First Congregational Church at 
Manchester, to offer prayer. I'^ollovving the invocation the Harvard 
male quartet of Boston sang Homer's " The Trumpets Call." 

Chairman W'hite then read telegrams of greeting from the mayor 
of Greeley, Col., from Chappaqua, N. Y., and from several other 
sources. Special interest was manifested in a letter from Mrs 
Gabrielle Greeley Clendenin, of Chappaqua, inclosing a letter 
written by her father, Horace Greeley. Her own letter is as 
follows : 

My dear Mr White and descendants of my dear father's neighbors : 

I greet you, and thank you for observing his centennial. You 
know how dear you all were to his heart. I used to think he re- 
garded you as his honored kinsmen. He never was too busy to see 
any one from Amherst. 

Two fires have consumed almost all my family treasures, but 
I am sending you one of the most interesting letters I have, hoping 
it will be where all can see it in the future. 

I have visited Amherst, and I think it is a beautiful place. Besides 
its dear associations to me, please say to those met to honor my 
dear father, " my heart will be with you on that day." 

Gabrielle Greeley Clendenin 

After a selection, " Love's Old, Sweet Song," by the quartet, 
Chairman White read letters of tribute to Horace Greeley from the 
editors, respectively of the Philadelphia Enquirer, the New York 
Evening Post, the Washington Post, the Washington Herald, the 
Brooklyn Eagle, the Hartford Courant, the Boston Transcript, the 
Springfield Republican and other newspapers, and from William 
Dean Howells. Greetings from the New Hampshire Press Asso- 
ciation were extended by John W. Condon, and from the Weekly 
Publishers' Association by Arthur B. Rotch. Especial enthusiasm 
was aroused by the announcement that the state legislature had 
voted to appropriate money for a memorial boulder to mark the 
birthplace of Greeley, and that the Governor had signed the measure, 
which was introduced by Representative Edward I>. Welch, of 
Franklin. 

The oration of the day was pronounced by Flon. Albert E. Pills- 
bury of Boston. 

ADDRESS BY ALBERT E. PILLSBURY, FORMER 

ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MASSACHUSETTS 

" The journalists *are now the true kings and clergy. Henceforth 

historians, unless they are fools, must write not of Bourbon 

dynasties, and Tudors, and Hapsburgs, but of Broad-sheet dynas- 

i 




BIRTHPLACE MAkkl-.k 

At Amherst, N. H., near " Greeley house " 



HORACE GKEELEV MEMORIAL 65 

ties, and quite new successive names, according as this or the other 
able editor, or combination of able editors, gains the world's ear." 

Thus spake Thomas Carlyle in 1831. In the same year, perhaps 
at the same moment, there found his way into the city of New 
York a raw country lad from New Hampshire, who had it in 
charge of fate to make the American kings and clergy bend before 
the first " broad-sheet dynasty " known to the New World. The 
people of his native town and blood, the tillers of the soil that 
produced him, are gathered here in his memory. The eager interest 
which the world takes in every point and circumstance of the life 
of a noted personage extends to the place of his birth, and this 
accident has made many a place otherwise insignificant a place of 
pilgrimage. Today this modest New Hampshire town claims and 
holds a wide attention as the spot where a famous and historic 
character first saw the light of day one hundred years ago. 

The story of Horace Greeley is the familiar fireside tale of a 
boy who worked his way from sordid poverty to honorable fame 
and a place in history, by the power within him. Greeley is unique 
even among what are called self-made men. He made the ascent 
in spite of personal faults and weaknesses that would have stopped 
the way and ruined the prospects of any but a man of compelling 
genius. The people always made merry of his foibles, but he 
secured and held for a generation a commanding influence, over 
public opinion and the councils of the nation. The man who did 
this calls for attention. 

We must take a look at the Amherst boy, the ten years of Horace 
that belong to this town. It will interest this audience to observe 
that Amherst may take credit for developing, even in ten years, 
most of the traits that afterward made him famous. When he had 
become a celebrity the usual crop of boyhood tales began to appear, 
many of them absurdly exaggerated, as he declared, but there are 
some that rest on his own authority. There is no doubt that as a 
boy he was a prodigy. A frail, odd. tow-headed child, nervous and 
sensitive, timid of manner and squeaky of voice, he seemed to have 
eyes more for print than for anything else. He learned to read, 
nobody ever knew how, before he could speak plainly, and never 
left ofi reading. It is said that he could read any book or paper 
upside down, and there are indications that after he grew to man's 
estate he may have read some things by this process of inversion. 
If reading came to Horace by nature, as Dogberry said, writing 
came not at all. The crow's tracks that followed his pen were all 
his life a national laughter. A typesetter in the Tribune office once 



66 THE UNIVKKSITV UF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

said that, if liebhazzar had seen that hand-writing on the wall, it 
would ha\c killed him on the spot. Horace had to educate himself, 
and he did it, on the whole, so nnich better than schools or colleges 
did it then, or do it now, as to inspire him with a lifelong contempt 
for colleges and college graduates — the most ignorant of all horned 
cattle, as he called them. lie used to walk down the road to meet 
the weekly r'armer's Cabinet, and alxsorb the whole contents of 
the paper on the way home. He scoured the neighborhood for 
books, and read by the light of the fire, as Abraham Lincoln did, 
everything in print that he could lay hands on. 

Unlike Lincoln, he did not mingle much in the sports and games 
of the other boys. He sometimes went fishing, but he never would 
use a gun, and it is said that he stopped his ears at the sound of a 
gun. He seems to have had a woman's horror of bloodshed and 
slaughter, that followed him through life and probably affected his 
public conduct on one or two notable occasions. He was easily 
first at school, and cried if by any mischance he lost the place at the 
head of the class. A biographer says that he had read the Bible 
through, and beaten the town in spelling school, in his fifth year. 
His reputation extended beyond the town limits. The Bedford 
school committee voted that no pupil from any neighboring town 
should be admitted to their schools " except Horace Greeley." He 
was a good-natured boy, a favorite in school and among the 
neighbors. He tried to smoke at five years of age, and never tried 
again, never touched liquor after his thirteenth year, though liquor 
was then so common that he describes in his " Recollections " the 
tables set with rum and brandy in front of hospitable doors at the. 
ordination of President Lord in this village, and if swearing is, as 
somebody has called it, only the unnecessary use of profane lan- 
guage, Horace Greeley, boy and man, can probably be acquitted of 
all personal vices. 

They picture Horace as wearing in summer the remnant of a, 
palm-leaf hat, a tow shirt never buttoned at the neck, and towj 
trousers with legs of diverse lengths, and in winter the same witK 
jacket and shoes. Like all farmer's boys of those days, he had to 
take his share of work, and some rough work. He rode the horse 
to plow, and was thrown off, helped his father for a while in a 
sawmill, picked stones a good deal, which he did not like, and picked 
hops in the season, which was more like play, for it brought the 
young people together in a sort of neighborhood frolic, as some of 
the oldest here may remember. 

In the winter of 1821, before Horace was ten years old, he had 




ALBERT E. PILLSBURY 

Former Attorney General of Massachusetts 
Speaker at centenary observances, Amherst, X. H., February 3, 191 1 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 6"] 

to take leave of this place of his birth. Debt and misfortune drove 
the Greeley family from Amherst to Vermont and thence to a 
Pennsylvania wilderness. Horace's young ambition had already 
devoted him to the " art preservative of all arts," and he was 
resolved to be a printer. After many rebutis, in the spring of 1826 
the tall, pale, awkward boy, as he described himself, was found at 
the case in the printing ofhce of the Northern Spectator, at East 
Poultney, X'ermont. In his nineteenth year he had mastered the 
trade, was first in the village debating society, and the local cyclo- 
pedia of everything political. But the Spectator failed, and he lost 
his place. He had no money, no prospects, no influential friends, 
and, after looking here and there for work and finding none, the 
forlorn and friendless lad started afoot, with stick and bundle, on 
the journey that ended after many stormy years at the threshold 
of the White House, which he was not to enter. He drifted about, 
seeking and finding here or there a job at the case, and finally, 
on the 17th day of August 1831, the young tramp-printer brought 
up in New York City, his bundle on his back and ten dollars in his 
pocket, dreaming, perhaps, but knowing as little as the world knew 
of what was before him. 

We must pass by the struggles and ventures of his early years 
in the city, the Morning Post, his first bantling of three weeks, the 
New Yorker, successful everywhere but in the till, the Jeffersonian, 
the Log Cabin, of the famous Tippecanoe campaign of 1840. They 
made reputation for him, the Log Cabin a national reputation, but 
no money. The next trial proved to be the master stroke. On the 
loth day of April 1841, Horace Greeley issued the first number of 
the New York Tribune. From this time he was making history. 
The Tribune was to become an American institution, and to wield 
a more direct and powerful influence upon the recasting of the 
American nation than any other product of the newspaper press. 

We can not speak of Greeley without speaking of the Tribune. 
They were one and inseparable. The paper began as a Whig journal, 
devoted to Clay and a tariff for protection, and with the strong 
leaning which Greeley always had toward all social and political 
reforms — too strong a leaning, perhaps, though, while his mind 
was open to all the " isms," he really embraced few or none of them. 
He was antislavery, though not an avowed abolitionist, from the 
day when he witnessed the rescue of a fugitive slave in Vermont. 
The infamies of the annexation of Texas, the Mexican War, and 
the fugitive-slave law of 1850, stirred Greeley's soul to its depths 
and put him into the forefront of the political free soil and anti- 



68 Tllli UXIVKKSITV OF TlIK STATE OF NEW YORK 

slavery inu\cniciit. Thenceforth the slave power iiad no bolder or 
more resolute antagonist, nor any whose blow was more direct or 
deadly. He openly encouraged resistance to the fugitive slave law, 
heaped contempt upon the Dred Scott deliverance of the Supreme 
Court, which he justly declared to be " of no more authority than 
the opinion of the loafers in a Washington barroom," rallied the 
country to the defence of bleeding Kansas, and led the way in bring- 
ing all the antislavery forces together in the Republican party. The 
historic character and influence of the Tribune grew out of the 
slavery question more than any other. It began to be a public 
force at the time when slavery was jnishing all other questions 
aside, and its power grew as the heat of the conflict waxed fiercer. 
The slave oligarchy felt Greeley's steel in their vitals, and it was 
not long before they paid the Tribune the high compliment, which 
it shared with Garrison's Liberator, of an attempt to exclude it 
from the mails in the slave states. 

From the late forties the Tribune was the leading newspaper of 
the country. In a letter written thirty-nine years ago today, 
February 3, 1872, Greeley said that in ordinary times the circulation 
of the daily had been 40,000 and of the weekly 120,000 copies. 
Figures never measured the influence of the Tribune, which ex- 
tended far beyond its own readers. In Greeley's time a leading 
newspaper was a social and political power, addressed to thinking 
people and read for its opinions not less than for the news. It 
usually represented a real character, and often a great character. 
It had a constituency, built up by the public confidence in the man 
behind it. Of all these Greeley was first in the eye of the people, 
and the Tribune spoke with his voice. Founded in protest against 
the rowdy journalism of the Jefiferson Brick type, so justly stig- 
matized by Charles Dickens, it was clean, independent, honest and 
fearless. Greeley talked to the people in their own tongue and, 
as it were, face to face. A habit of signing his articles with his 
name or initials gave them a direct personal element, and many an 
honest countryman who never saw Horace Greeley felt that he had 
talked with him and knew him. On occasions he could smite with 
a rough and heavy hand, wlinse blow was terrible and sometimes 
fatal. Greeley was neither nice nor ]iolite in his choice of words. 
Naturally the most peaceable and kindly of men, he was hot of 
temper and a master of vituperation. The much-quoted " You lie.j 
you villain." was not an every-day affair, but he answered the fool' 
according to his folly, and never stuck at epithets if he thought they 
were deserved. The clearness and vigor of his style, the open 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 69 

sincerity of his opinions, and the universal confidence in his in- 
tegrity, gave him a hold on the popular mind unparalleled in 
journalism. 

The Tribune found its way into every nook and corner of the 
northern states, and followed the tide of emigration to the West. 
With the farmers, who regarded Greeley as one of themselves, it 
was especially strong. Every other newspaper quoted it. and some- 
body said that no country editor put pen to paper until the Tribune 
had told him what Greeley thought. It was not only the most 
widely read but the most universally talked about. Toiling and 
thinking multitudes absorbed it, believed it. and voted by it. 
Fletcher of Saltoun said that he who can make the ballads of a 
nation need not care who makes its laws. The real leader and ruler, 
in whose hands all lesser men are puppets, is the man who shapes 
the course of public thought. Such was Horace Greeley. In the 
critical period when the forces of public opinion were aligning 
themselves for the final struggle with the slave power, a moral issue 
was uppermost, and the appeal was to the moral sense. Greeley 
reached and stirred the public conscience. It must be reckoned his 
greatest service to the country that he gave the Tribune a place with 
the Liberator. " Uncle Tom's Cabin." the " Biglow Papers," and 
the stirring lyrics of Whittier. as one of the great moral forces that 
settled the public resolve against slavery and steeled the nation for 
war. 

The Tribune made Greeley the best-known man in America. 
Never holding public office but to serve out three months of an 
unexpired term in Congress at the end of 1848 — in which fragment 
of time he broke up the abuses of the mileage system and brought 
in the national policy of the homestead laws — he was the most 
public character in the country. The oddities of his appearance 
and manner, the patriarchal head and face, the old hat and old 
white coat, the cravat awry, the shapeless trousers, the shambling 
gait, celebrated and exaggerated in print and caricature, made him 
one of the sights of New York, and would have been recognized at 
any crossroads in the United States. As the Tribune was more 
talked about than any other paper, so Greeley himself was more 
talked about than any other man. His name was familiar to every 
tongue, and his character to every man who could read. Any bright 
schoolboy could have told what " H. G." stood for, and any in- 
telligent citizen could have told what Horace Greeley stood for. 

It was not the Tribune alone that did this. Greeley's activities 
were many and amazing. Politics and journalism never monop- 



70 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YCRK 

olized the energy of this phenomenal mind. He was always at 
work for the social and industrial welfare and progress of the 
people. Whittier called him " our later Franklin." There is poetic 
license in this comparison, but it may be doubted whether there has 
been since Franklin's any more widely useful life. With the 
Tribune on his shoulders, he contributed to other newspapers and 
magazines, delivered addresses on all sorts of occasions, lectured 
before country lyceums as the fashion then was, spoke from the 
stump in political campaigns, produced volumes of travel, social 
reform, agriculture, political economy, and one work of permanent 
historical value. " The American Conflict " would have made an 
enduring reputation for him if he had written nothing else. His 
part in politics was not merely the part of a w-riter and speaker. 
For many years the noted triumvirate of Seward, Weed and Greeley 
had a direct and powerful hand upon the political machinery of 
New York and of the nation. W^ith unbounded faith in the future 
of the country, and eager for its development, he was one of the 
first to urge a Pacific railway when such a project was laughed at, 
and Greeley's persistent " Go West, young man " became the rally- 
ing cry of a national movement that peopled new states. 

■ All his industry and success never made him rich. He had no 
love for money, and he was never a business man. Swindlers could 
overreach him and impostors get money from him, though the con- 
stant appeal to his easy benevolence was sometimes too much for 
his temper. A solemn-looking character hung about his desk one 
day until the hurried editor demanded his errand. " I want you 
to give me a contribution " said the stranger, " to save thousands 
of our fellow creatures from going to hell." " I won't give you a 
])lanked cent," was the reply. " Not half enough of them go there 
now." Greeley w'as a Universalist. 

We are here to remember Horace Greeley, not to praise him. | 
His character presents a strange combination of strength and weak- \ 
ness. He was wise as a sage and simple as a child, fixed in con- 
viction and erratic of judgment, full of benevolence to every living ; 
creature, and almost as full of prejudices, a lover of man and a 
hater of men. The pugnacity of his honest nature struck out fiercely 
at every rogue, hypocrite and humbug, and at some just men and 
causes. Where there are blows to give, there are blows to take. 
It is no wonder that this dynamic man of peace was more abused, 
admired, vilified, hated, trusted and followed, than any other man 
of his time. 

With the a])i)roach of the rebellion, Greeley became a greater 




From Americana collection of Frederick 11. Meserve, New York 

GREELEY AT DIFIKRENT AGES 
1856 1848 1865 



1869 



1869 



1873 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 7I 

figure than before. His place in journalism had long been first. 
He was about to take a larger place in the history of the country. 
In his erratic course through this period there are some episodes 
that can not be recalled with satisfaction. His impulsive tempera- 
ment betrayed him into conduct which has left shadows upon his 
reputation, but there is no stain upon it. His integrity of character 
and purity of motive were never questioned. 

In the historic contest of 1858 between Douglas and Lincoln, 
Greeley's mistaken sympathy with a Democrat in revolt against a 
Democratic administration, and his views of party policy, led him 
to advocate the reelection of Douglas. Naturally and justly resented 
by the Republicans of the West, this was more than atoned for two 
years later. In the Republican convention of i860, at Chicago, 
Greeley cast all his strength against Seward, the leading candidate, 
and cleared the way for the nomination of Abraham Lincoln. This 
act was charged to personal resentment against Sevv^ard, and not 
without some reason, but Greeley was more than justified by the 
results. In the light of subsequent events, the man whose influence 
was decisive in making Seward give place to Lincoln as the leader 
of the nation through the throes of civil war appears a chosen 
instrument in the hand of Providence. 

In the perilous years of President Lincoln's administration, the 
wisdom of his attitude in refusing to move faster than the people 
moved made every leader of public opinion an important character. 
Of the leaders of public opinion the man who wielded the power 
of the Tribune was second only to Lincoln himself, and his mistakes 
could not escape notice and criticism. There was no purer patriot, 
no more loyal friend of freedom and of the Union, than Horace 
Greeley, but he was subject to the limitations of his nature. When 
the revolt of the slave states was threatened, Greeley scouted it, 
declaring that the South could no more unite on such a scheme than 
a parcel of lunatics could conspire to break out of Bedlam. When 
secession actually began, he at first advised that the rebellious states 
be allowed to go in peace. So potent was his influence that Presi- 
dent Lincoln w^as moved to interpose against the further expression 
of such views. There was no more of this after the attack on 
Sumter. When rebellion had fairly unmasked its front of war. 
the Tribune raised the cry of " On to Richmond," and the popular 
clamor drove our raw levies into the disaster of Bull Run. Despite 
his just disclaimer of personal responsibility, the public fury at the 
defeat was turned upon Greeley, always a sensitive man in spite of 
his fighting traits, and drove him into a fever that threatened his 



72 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW VOKK 

life, in which he addressed to the President a despairing letter that 
made Lincoln, as his biographers say, " sigh at the strange weakness 
of human nature." 

Greeley's impatient temper could not await the cautious and sure- 
footed steps of the great President toward the freeing and arming 
of the slaves. The " Prayer of Twenty Millions," published in the 
Tribune, of August 19, 1862, protesting against the slow enforce- 
ment of the confiscation acts upon the slaves of rebels in arms, 
drew from tlie President a public reply, personally addressed to 
Greeley, which stands out as one of the most striking examples 
alike of Lincoln's political sagacity and his wonderful power of clear 
and direct statement. In this letter is the much-quoted, misunder- 
stood and perverted declaration, " If I could save the Union with- 
out freeing any slave. I would do it." It is a singular proof of 
human fatuity that people who read our history, and some who 
write it, even in the light of what followed still profess to believe 
that Lincoln would have allowed slavery to be preserved, and quote 
this letter for the proof. lie declared that his purpose was to save 
the Union, and every student of Lincoln's life knows that there 
never was a time after 1854 when his unerring and prophetic vision 
did not see that the Union could not be saved with slavery. When 
he had become President, with the issues of war in his hands, there 
were occasions when the duty of preserving a united North com- 
pelled him to temporize, and to be all things to all men. It is plain 
that he seized the occasion of Greeley's protest to make this public 
declaration only because it would help to disarm the hostility of 
northern conservatives to the policy of emancipation on which he 
was already resolved. He could not yet publicly declare that he was 
resolved upon it, though this can almost be read between the lines, 
especially of the opening passage of his letter. But it need only be 
remembered that, at the moment when Lincoln penned this letter 
to Greeley, on the 226. day of August 1862, there lay upon his table, 
ready-winged for its flight, the proclamation of freedom, which had 
already been announced to the cabinet council and a month later 
was given to the world. 

In 1864. when final victory was in sight, Greeley seemed appalled 
at the continued outpouring of blood and treasure, called for a 
cessation of hostilities, and urged the President to negotiate for 
peace with rebel agents then in Canada. The tactful President met 
this demand by promptly deputing Greeley himself upon the mission, 
which came to nothing. He did not favor the renomination of 
Lincoln, and predicted his defeat if nominated, though supporting 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 73 

him vigorously in the campaign. The patient President beHeved 
and declared Greeley incapable of wilful misconduct, and Greeley 
afterward atoned, so far as he could, for his attitude toward Lin- 
coln in his lifetime, acknowledging him to be " the one providential 
leader, the indispensable hero of the great drama." 

Upon the collapse of the rebellion, Greeley's benevolent impulses 
led him to take ground at once for universal amnesty and universal 
suffrage. The freedman should vote, and the rebel should be 
forgiven. In line with this conviction he made, on invitation, a 
journey to Richmond, in 1867, to become bail for the release of 
jcft"erson Davis from further military custody. This generous if 
misguided act raised a storm of denunciation. The Tribune wa^J 
assailed with a chorus of "' Stop my paper," the sale of the 
" American Conflict " came to a standstill, and even Greeley's per- 
sonal and social standing was threatened. A leading club called 
him to account with a view to expulsion; to which he rejoined with 
characteristic vigor, " You evidently regard me as a weak senti- 
mentalist, misled by a maudlin philosophy. I arraign you as narrow- 
minded blockheads, who would like to be useful to a great and 
good cause but don't know how." The club did not pursue the 
subject. When the fifteenth amendment had been ratified, Greeley 
declared " the books closed," that all the crimes of rebellion should 
])e overlooked and all remembrance of them merged in complete 
reconciliation. He failed in judgment here, as he had at other 
critical periods. Even the contemptuous rejection of the constitu- 
tional amendments by the rebel states had not taught him that the 
snake was only scotched, not killed. The South was still deter- 
mined, as it is today, to preserve the substance if not the form of 
slavery, and after almost half a century w'e find it still in open 
rebellion against the Federal constitution, by fraud instead of force, 
with Greeley's hope of universal or even impartial suffrage yet 
unrealized. 

We come to the climax, and the catastrophe. In May 1872, the 
Liberal Republican convention, at Cincinnati, nominated Greeley 
for the presidency. This futile but not unpatriotic movement was a 
Republican revolt against President Grant, led by eminent and high- 
minded men whose confidence was shaken, perhaps to soon, by the 
mistakes of his first administration and the sinister influence of 
worthless camp-followers about him. The Cincinnati platform, 
unexceptionable in tone and character, followed Greeley in declar- 
ing for universal amnesty and impartial suff'rage, and Greeley's 
letter of acceptance expressed his belief that the people, North and 



74 TJUi UNIVKKSITV UF THE STATE OF .NEW YORK 

South, were ready to "clasp hands across the bloody chasm" — a 
phrase that passed into a popular shibboleth. Forthwith upon this 
nomination all the vials of partisan wrath were opened and poured 
out upon him. lie had asserted his independence of party, the 
mortal sm of politicians. All that he had done lor the party, and 
for the country, was forgotten in a moment. Calumny outran itself, 
and Greeley was lampooned, abused and reviled with a brutal ferocity 
unknown even to the prize-ring of politics. The Democratic 
convention, meeting at Baltimore in July, adopted the Cincinnati 
candidates and platform, and Greeley accepted the nomination. This 
sealed his fate, though it was not otherwise doubtful. Myriads of 
Republicans in sympathy with the movement refused to see that 
Greeley, who did not alter his position by the breadth of a hair, had 
not gone to the Democratic party but that the party had come to 
him. They would not support a candidate bearing the Democratic 
label. He made a campaign tour of New England and the Middle 
West, rising to his highest level in a series of dignified, temperate 
and statesmanlike speeches, and achieved a popular vote of nearly 
three millions in a total of less than six millions and a half, but 
every northern state was against him. The distrust of Greeley's 
new alliance was not unnatural or unfounded, and Greeley himself, 
with all his virtues, did not strike the popular instinct as a safe 
candidate for the presidency. Apart from this, the military prestige 
of President Grant would have carried all before it. The people 
remembered the victorious general, and they forgot everything else. 
Greeley's defeat was foreordained at Appomattox. 

He was recalled from the strife of the campaign to the bedside 
of his dying wife, who was taken from him on the eve of the elec- 
tion. Widowed and defeated, his fortitude was still unshaken, and 
no sooner was the result of the political contest declared than he 
promptly resumed the editorial chair of the Tribune. But the 
calamities that could not subdue this resolute spirit were too much 
for the physical frame. The overworked brain gave way, and on 
the 29th day of that same month of November, with little warning, 
the country was startled by the news that Horace Greeley was no 
more. 

At the dramatic culmination of this illustrious and useful life, 
and the pathos of the closing scene, there was a recoil from the 
extreme of abuse to the extreme of eulogy. All classes and condi- 
tions of men joined in the universal expression of public loss, to 
which probably every press and almost every pulpit in the United 
States made its contribution. The citv of New York turned aside 




^^^'^ 





From Americana cof lection of Frederirl- TJ 1 ' 

PHOTOGRAPHS OK GKhhLhS Al l»ll' !■ l.KliNT PERIODS 

In upper left-hand comer, with B. Gratz Brown 
872 1866 1872 



1869 



1872 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 75 

for the funeral observance. Crowds surged through City Hall to 
view the dead face of the friend of the people until the doors had 
to be closed against them. The highest officials of the nation and 
of many states followed him to the grave, through silent and un- 
covered throngs, never seen before nor since save at the obsequies 
of Lincoln and Grant. It was not the empty honor often paid to 
official station, for he held none, nor to success, for he died under 
the shadow of defeat. It was a sincere and unatTected tribute to 
the patriot, the friend of humanity, the tribune of the people. 

It has been unworthily said that he died of wounded vanity at 
the judgment passed against him in the election. Such empty 
detraction can neither be proved nor disproved, but it is not likely 
that the ordinary abuse of a presidential contest, even followed by 
defeat, would have put an end to his life or seriously disturbed him. 
In the warfare of politics, Horace Greeley was an old soldier. No 
man knew better than he that the loudest clamor of a presidential 
campaign is nothing but the squealing and scrambling of a herd of 
mercenaries to get their noses into the public trough or keep them 
in it. As Hosea Biglow said or sang : 

They march in percessions, an' git up hooraws, 
An' tramp thru the mud for the grood o' the cause, 
An' think they're a kind o' fulfillin' the prophecies 
Wen they're only jest changin' the holders of ofhces. 

Greeley was not to be frightened or hurt by the thunder of the 
captains and the shouting, and he well knew the fortune of war. 
Even in defeat, it was not wholly adverse to him. He received a 
great popular indorsement in the vote at the polls. But he was cut 
to the heart by the malice of enemies and treachery of friends. He 
was tortured with fear of disaster to the Tribune, the child of his 
affection. He had taxed his physical powers beyond endurance, and 
domestic calamity fell heavily upon him at the moment when out- 
raged nature was strained to the breaking point. Surely there is 
enough here to account for his taking-off. 

A prophet is not without honor save in his own country and in 
his own house. Happily it is not left to his native town or state to 
remember Horace Greeley. Many biographers have told and still 
tell his story, the working printers placed above his grave in Green- 
wood cemetery a memorial bust, cast in type-metal, his statue was 
raised on the spot dedicated by the city of New York as Greeley 
square, and towns and counties in the far West bear and perpetuate 
his name ; while New Hampshire talks of a statue to the president 
who fed from the hand of slavery and went to the verge of treason 



/() IIII-: iNi\i:i<sii N oi iiii-. siATi-; oi- xi-:w vokk 

ill lioldin^ iiiit hope Id a sla\chulders' rebellion — leaving to distant 
slates the pious duly of coninieinorating her son who lost the presi- 
dency but kept his honor and kept faith with freedom. 

The loss of the presidency was no misfortune to Greeley. It 
would have adtled little, perhaps nothing, to his permanent reputa- 
tion. Fortunate that he escajjed the fate of some in that illustrious 
line for whom oblivion would be a happy exchange. A man of 
genius, with the faults that usually attend upon genius, he was not 
of the stuff of which 1 'residents are made. High character antl 
purity of purpose he had, but not the cool and balanced judgment, 
the " sure-footed mind " and " supple-tempered will " that ought 
to be found in the head of the nation. In temperament he was lesj 
a statesman than moralist and reformer, though what overflowed 
from Greeley into the field of statecraft would make the reputation 
of many statesmen. He had a human interest in which many 
greater men are wanting. It is enough for his fame that he had a 
foremost part in forging the weapons that struck down rebellion 
and saved the Union that slavery would have destroyed. A great 
citizen, whose example was the shame of every hypocrite and 
coward, who never stifled his honest thought nor bent his knee to 
power, whose character and voice of authority made legislatures 
listen and statesmen sit at his feet, he will be remembered when 
Presidents are forgotten. 

Horace Greeley was first and last a great journalist, holding that 
this character may be made superior to any official station, and 
doing much to vindicate the claim. His influence permanently raised 
the level of the American newspaper and the thought of the Ameri- 
can people. The real power of the press in this country began with 
Greeley, and if it did not end with him. it has gained nothing since. 
The Tribune had no higher merit than its absolute independence, 
alike of the slave power, which ruled the country then, and the 
money power, which rules the country now. We know in what 
contempt the great editor would have held the modern advertising 
machine, boasting its circulation but without character or courage to 
print anything that might disturb the balance of a ledger. Better, 
would he say, better the honest opinion even of a bad man than the 
dumb oracle that sits with hand on mouth and points to a bargain 
counter. 

It was in the character of journalist that Horace Greeley wished 
to be remembered. Not long before his death he left this testimony 
to the world, in solemn and jjathetic words that sound of prophecy 
and requiem. " Fame," he said, " is a vapor ; popularity an acci- 



HORACE GREELEY .MEMORlAl, 



77 



dent ; riches take wings ; the only earthly certainty is oblivion ; no 
man can foresee what a day may bring forth ; while those who cheer 
today will often curse tomorrow ; and yet I cherish the hope that 
the journal I projected and established will live and flourish long 
after I shall have moldered into forgotten dust, being guided by 
a larger wisdom, a more unerring sagacity to discern the right, 
though not a more unfaltering readiness to embrace and defend it 
at whatever cost ; and that the stone wdiich covers my ashes may 
bear to future eyes the still intelligible inscription, * Founder of the 
New York Tribune.' " 









From an old print 

Greeley's birthplace at amherst, n. h. 



GREELEY HONORED IN 
COLORADO 



GREELEY HONORED IN COLORADO 

In Greeley, Colorado, Horace Greeley's one hundredth birthday 
was celebrated by the entire community — the town and country 
round — while Denver, Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Boulder, Long- 
mont, Fort Collins and other cities in the state sent delegations to 
join in the exercises of the day and evening. ]\Iayor George M. 
Houston, an enthusiastic admirer of Mr Greeley and a true colonist, 
had sent letters to leading people inviting them to assist in honoring 
the centenary of the great man who had done so much to make the 
colony a success. He also set on foot a movement for erecting a 
monument to Mr Greeley. 

The result was a general holiday, with schools closed and business 
of every kind suspended. It was an ideal Colorado day, the town 
gay with flags and bands of music. A notable feature was the 
participation of schools and churches in the celebration. As was 
to be expected, the older colonists took special delight and interest 
in reviewing and living over again their early labors at town-planning 
and city-building and recalling with pride the stupendous growth 
and success of their colony. 

Among the notable citizens who came to the colony with Greeley 
and who took part in the celebration were Oliver Howard, 70 years 
old ; Henry T. West, 87 ; Charles A. White, 74 ; John Leary, who 
is in his 80th year; and the following, all of whom are over 70: 
Richard Armstrong, Mr and Mrs W. M. Darling, Ovid Plumb, Dr 
G. Law, M. B. Knowles and George W. Fisk. In all there are about 
75 of the original colonists now living. 

Professor R. \V. Bullock talked to the pupils of the upper grades 
in the morning at the high school exercises, and in the afternoon 
Mr D. D. Hugh talked to the children of the lower grades. Special 
evening exercises were held in the Methodist Church, the largest 
church in town, where the principal speeches were delivered in 
eulogy of Mr Greeley's wonderful life of achievement. First in 
morning exercises was Mayor Houston's address to the pupils of 
the schools of Greeley, who were assembled in the auditorium of 
the high school. 

ADDRESS BY MAYOR GEORGE M. HOUSTON 
A year ago I had the pleasure of speaking to you on the general 
topic, " Seeing Visions." In talking today about the man we love 
and revere, it has occurred to me that the homely virtues of this 

81 



82 THE UNIVERSITY l)F THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

plain and splendid American can best be appreciated under the title, 
" The Great Heart." And therefore, what I shall say to you of 
" The Great Heart," is in my mind truly and directly biographical 
touching the illustrious commoner- — ^ihc plain American citizen for 
whom our town is named. 

We have been told that bingra])liy is the best history, and so it 
is. In fad, if wc could get true biographies, we should have true 
histories. Much of history, I am sorry to say, is untrustworthy, 
and many so-called warriors and statesmen have been eulogized in 
history, too often because they had biographers whose business it 
was to make reputation greater than manhood and character. 

Horace Greeley was not that kind of man. He told the truth as 
he saw it, and would not swerve from what he deemed the righteous 
course to win any man's favor. His integrity and love of justice 
and fair play rise to mountain heights, compared with the things 
that are so often referred to, as Greeley's peculiar ways and dis- 
regard of personal appearance and dress. As the years pass, the 
memory of alleged eccentricities fades, leaving his noble character 
and moral greatness ; his genius and infinite humanity growing 
brighter and brighter on the pages of history. 

Mr Greeley was bitterly criticised because he made himself ob- 
noxious to certain political associates in Congress, who had little 
sympathy with his demands for common, every-day honesty on the 
part of congressmen who were in the habit of getting the largest 
possible sums of money out of the Government for mileage, in the 
good old days when Robinhood flourished in Washington, and Jesse 
James and his kind were doing business in the West — when con- 
tractors were looting right and left for the benefit of themselves j 
and their political allies in the national capital. 

My young friends. I should fail miserably in my duty if I did 
not call your attention to the real statesmen of our country, the real j 
statesmen of today, who are the direct descendants of that glorious 
type of men, of whom ITorace Greeley was the head, in the New 
York Tribune, in the sixties and early seventies, men who had con- 
victions and were not afraid to call a spade a spade. 

When Thomas Jeft'erson was recounting the incidents of his 
own life, he made small mention of the. to him. insignificant fact 
that he was the author of the Declaration of Independence, and 
of the facts that he was sent on missions of state to foreign courts, 
and was twice made President of bis country; but the far-seeing 
statesman felt himself not immodest in asking credit for the fact 
that he had added to the agricultural wealth of the country, by the 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 83 

introduction of new plants, by the purchase of the Mississippi val- 
ley, and by securing in the Government a change in the law of 
descent of property, so that lands held by the father should descend 
equally to all his children, and not entirely to the eldest oflfspring. 

In short, the author of the Declaration of Independence was a 
good farmer, and though, in the language of John Lord, " Jefferson 
held the readiest pen in America." he found his supreme interest in 
the ways of the land and the husbandman. Likewise Horace Gree- 
ley, a vigorous writer and clear thinker, saw above all the fog of 
schemes in legislative finance and political chicanery, the real sources 
of his country's wealth and happiness in the labor and fostering care 
of the plain American farmer. 

Horace Greeley knew that our greatest victories were to be won 
amid the arts of peace, from well-tilled fields and honestly con- 
ducted business, not on battle fields with shouting captains and 
roaring guns. I suspect that he was much like our own David 
Boyd, long a colony trustee, to whom the colony owes so much — 
a man impatient with shams, vigorous and -fearless in a good fight, 
and thinking less of victory than the joy of being right, only pray- 
ing for sunshine and good crops ; not too careful about the sound 
of a phrase ; not too much worried over baggy pantaloons or frowzy 
hair. David Boyd was terribly concerned about honest results ; 
deadly in earnest for the success of a worthy friend, a poor, down- 
trodden toiler on land or sea; a true and undying friend of true 
men and women ; of animals in the field and birds in the air. 

Many, I know, will remember Mr Greeley as somewhat eccentric ; 
but, when I think of it. there at once arises a picture of those days 
of '60 and '61, when the country was swept by the great conflict, 
when many great souls were tried in that storm of passion and hate ; 
and then I see the later days when the war had spent itself, and 
peace once more dawned on the land, but the cemeteries and hos- 
pitals were full of the dead and dying, treasuries and granaries were 
empty, millions of homes dark and desolate and the nation filled with 
bitterness. 

Then began the long years of atonement and forgetfulness. The 
hour had come for reconstruction and conciliation. Horace Greeley 
welcomed the southern people with outstretched arms. No matter 
what critics and enemies may have thought of him in the past, all 
agreed that in the crisis of much opposed reconciliation, his acts 
showed that he was a great man. Greatness is somewhat hard to 
define, and still harder to recognize fully. We may be entertaining 
true greatness, right here in our own town, and yet with our im- 



84 iiii-: r.\i\ i-.usn ^' (II' iiii". sTATi-: oi' .\i-:\v xork 

perfect mental vision, may entirely overlook the budding genius of 
today who may astonish the world tomorrow. 

1 think that the surest test of human greatness lies in the bound- 
lessness of magnanimity and forgiveness. Napoleon was a great 
general, great lawmaker, great engineer and even great literary 
man and fmancier, and, we will admit, a great emperor, as rulers go; 
but I shall have to agree with Wendell IMiillijis, that he who showed 
no mercy to Toussaint L'Ouverture was not a great man. And by 
the same test I shall say that Horace Greeley, who could so far 
forget the fearful and bitter past and his merciless assaults on the 
southern leaders of the slave power as to sign the bail bond of 
Jefferson Davis, was indeed a great man. 

Marcus Cato admonished the Roman youth against the evils of 
passion and wasteful luxury, only to spoil the lesson by his ever 
famous " Carthage must be destroyed." but our good Horace Gree- 
ley was faithful to a more righteous star, and he pursued the con- 
sistent course of a man worthy to be, as he was, a great adviser of 
his countrymen, and set the example then so much needed, of for- 
getting ])ast wrongs, and l)ecoming himself absorbed and thoroughly 
busy with the duties of the new day. 

His was the great heart that would let bygones be bygones, and 
help foolish and mistaken partisans begin a new life and forget 
past grievances in the triumphs of brotherhood and love. It was 
the inspiration of Horace Greeley's teachings in the New York 
Tribune and on the i)latform. that has caused these fields to be 
plowed. Men like Fremont, the Pathfinder. Kit Carson, the scout 
and guide, and Custer, the great warrior, little dreamed that these 
dry. desolate plains would some day become even more fruitful and 
productive than the luxuriant fields of their boyhood. 

Mr Greeley was a far-seeing, ])ractical man. and was among the 
first to warn us that the soil could be abused and robbed of its 
fertility ; even in Colorado, that it was our heritage, and not to 
be wasted, but to be renewed and strengthened for those to come 
after us. He incited no youth to seek glory at the cannon's mouth, 
but rather to follow the ways that lead to prosperity and happiness. 
If it is true that a man's spirit, though lost to its former habitation, 
has been lent to those who survive, there is no place so fitting to 
retain and domicile the spirit of Horace Greeley as this town and 
community; and I am convinced that, were he alive today, he would 
be profoundly happy on his one hundredth birthday to behold a 
city and countryside so typical of his ideals, a place of charming 
homes and fruitful gardens, brought to perfection here in what 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 85 

luul been one of nature's negleeted places, now a marvel of fertility 
and beauty. 

Mayor Houston read a paper prepared at his request by Ralph 
Meeker, telling how the Greeley colony came to be founded by his 
father, Nathan C. Meeker, and how Mr Greeley gave the enter- 
prise his powerful editorial support in the New York Tribune, 
and unswervingly stood by the movement until his death. As Ralph 
Meeker was the original secretary of the colony, and attended all 
the meetings held in Cooper Institute during the memorable winter 
of its organization in 1869, he was able to tell the true story of 
how that successful colony was formed and financed, as if by 
magic, and by Mr Greeley's support was made the greatest colonial 
success since the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. 

THE FOUNDING OF GREELEY, COLORADO 

BY RALPH MEEKER 

George M. Houston, Mayor of Greeley, Colorado: 

In answer to your request for a paper on the founding of Greeley 
and its colony, to be read at the hundredth anniversary of Horace 
Greeley's birth, I would say that the proposition to erect a monu- 
ment to his memory in the town bearing his distinguished name, 
should receive the support of all citizens and friends of tTie colony, 
far and near. Horace Greeley was an honest man, unselfishly 
devoted to the country and all humanity. One of his strongest 
characteristics was his detestation of falsehood and misrepresenta- 
tion of every kind. 

Were Mr Greeley alive today, he would be the first to resent 
the statement, ofiicially sent out from the town of Greeley, and 
widely circulated through the West, that he was the originator and 
founder of the Greeley colony, and that he sent out N. C. Meeker of 
the Tribune's editorial staff, to act as director and general promoter 
of the enterprise, in line with his famous saying, " Go West, young 
man, go West." 

The facts are that Mr Greeley knew nothing of Mr Meeker's 
plan to start a colony in Colorado, until informed 1)y one of the 
Tribune stalT. on Mr Greeley's return from a trip to the country, 
and while Mr Meeker was absent at his home in New Jersey. But 
Mr Greeley instantly favored the proposed colony enterprise. Both 
were ardent advocates of the cooperative plan of country and subur- 
ban settlements, and both had been active members of Fourier 
phalanxes that were early established in the United States, Mr 



86 Till-: l\i\i:ksitv or thk state oi iNew vork 

(jrcclcy bciii^ a nienibcr of the North American i'halanx at Red 
Bank, N. j., and Mr Meeker an officer in the Trunibull I'halanx 
at Braceville, (J., some twelve miles west of W arren, in what is 
known as the Youngstown region. It was while Air Meeker was 
connected with this phalanx in 1843-44, that he first became ac- 
quainted with Mr (irec!cy through correspondence regardiiig the 
establishment of the phalanx at what was then known as Brace- 
ville. From that day Mr Meeker was a warm admirer of Horace 
Greeley. 

h>om that time, four or five years before the Mexican War, my 
father's ambition was some day to found a colony in the Far West, 
free from certain impractical features of Fourierism. It was not 
until the Lincoln campaign, followed by the election of Mr Lincoln, 
that Mr Meeker renewed his correspondence with Mr Greeley, 
which led to the publication in the Tribune of a series of letters 
from Dongola, 111., concerning political, industrial and social con- 
ditions in the Southwest, and particularly in southern Illinois, then 
chiefly in sympathy with the South. 

Mr Meeker's graphic descriptions and quaint observations on 
the impoverished conditions of that part of the country, together 
with his pen pictures of the home life of the natives, most bitterly 
opposed to Lincoln and the war, won favor in the Tribune office, 
and Mr Greeley telegraphed Albert D. Richardson, a Tribune 
stockholder and war correspondent then at Cairo, " We want to 
keep N. C. Meeker." Mr Richardson, a warm friend, was there 
organizing the Tribune's war news service in the Southwest, and 
Mr Meeker was the Tribune's only correspondent at the Battle of 
Fort Donelson, when General Buckner surrendered to General 
Grant. 

At the close of the war, Horace Greeley called Mr Meeker to the 
editorial staff of the Tribune. He was given wide latitude, and 
wrote editorials on social and industrial topics. ]:)csides writing up 
the various noted communities of the United States, from Oneida 
to Salt Lake, with its wonderful irrigation system. While making 
his first trip to the Mormon settlements in Utah, he was snow- 
bound. Trains on the Union Pacific were blockaded by the heavy 
snows of the early spring in 1869, and travel was temporarily sus- 
pended west of Laramie. So Mr Meeker took advantage of the 
delay to visit Colorado and the already famous mining city of 
Denver — then without a railroad or many inhabitants. 

The route was along the foothills south, by way of La Porte 
and Boulder. There was little or no snow on the sunny slopes to 




RALPH MEEKER 

First secretary of Greeley colony, Colorado 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 87 

impede the four-horse stage coach driven at " Overland Express " 
speed. He was so charmed with the scene, the shining peaks of 
the Snowy Range, the Great Plains stretching from the Rockies 
to the Missouri river, with the exhilarating ozone of the mountains 
that, when he returned to New York, he told his family that he 
was going to start a colony in the Rocky Mountain region of 
Colorado. 

Mr Greeley was absent at the time, but a few days later at Del- 
monico's he said to John Russell Young, then managing editor of 
the Tribune, " I hear that Meeker is going to take a colony to Col- 
orado. Tell him to go ahead, and I will back him in the Tribune. 
T only wish that I could go myself." Mr Meeker was grateful for 
the message, and soon issued a call in the Tribune inviting families 
to join the colony. 

Now, as the proceedings of the meetings held in Cooper Institute, 
following the call, were pubHshed in the Tribune, the Herald and 
other newspapers from time to time, the facts as to the founding of 
the colony are a matter of public record, together with Horace 
Greeley's editorials in behalf of Mr Meeker's venture. He was 
not only deeply grateful to Mr Greeley for accepting the office of 
treasurer of the colony, but at the organization meeting, Mr Meeker 
refused to have the colony bear his name, as was suggested by the 
members of the committee. He insisted that the honor should go 
to Mr Greeley, who then was elected treasurer of the organization. 
Subscriptions came in rapidly, and in a few weeks after the locating 
committee announced that a site had been selected, nearly a hun- 
dred thousand dollars was in the treasury, for purchasing the lands, 
and building the necessary irrigation canals to water the farms and 
gardens. 

As before stated, Horace Greeley detested liars and pretenders, 
and, were he alive today, he would pay his respects to certain state- 
ments in so-called history in regard to the founding of the Greeley 
colony. But, as Mr Greeley once wrote, " No man can overtake a 
lie, which ten men will read, where one reads the truth and be- 
lieves it." 

I do not blame those who have honestly been led astray in this 
matter, but there were certain so-called leading citizens who crowded 
into the colony in after years, for what there was in it for them- 
selves and the political adventurers working for graft and rum on 
the outside who knew better and yet continued their misrepresenta- 
tions simply " to get even " with a dead man. who had established 
a successful colony on an antiwhiskey basis with all that sobriety 



<S8 TIIK r.\l\ i:i<SITN ol" TlIK STATK OF NEW VOKK 

and industry stand for. Some ten years later, when the head of the 
lirst Greeley hoard of trade sent circulars broadcast, stating that 
the colony was founded by Horace Greeley, and omitted all ref- 
erence to N. C. Meeker, or the historical facts in the case, 1 asked 
him what he meant by such statements — robbing a dead man of his 
honors. " Oh," he sneered, " if Greeley didn't found the colony, 
he ought to have done it, so it's all right any way." Such ignorance 
and mendacity react on the town, for there are important men 
and women alive today who know the truth as it appears in the files 
of the Tribune and other New York papers of the years 1869-71. 

-And here is myself for instance; my own testimony. I was the 
first secretary of the colony in New York; I signed the receipts 
for the $90,000 that had been received by the cashier of the Tribune 
office. Daniel Frohman, who was then in the business office of the 
Tribune, gave me much assistance in keeping the records, handling 
from thirty to a hundred letters a day, which had to be answered in 
the absence of Mr Meeker, the president, then traveling with the 
location committee in Colorado. Often I have been asked, " What 
is the matter with those Colorado liars? Can't they read? Don't 
they believe the records and Horace (ireeley's own editorial testi- 
mony as to the origin of the colony?" 

I suppose that human nature is the same in all ages and lands. 
Honest, decent men are outnumbered by self-seeking rascals. The 
game of grab and misrepresentation, like crooked politics, is popular 
with the average business highwayman, east and west. As Mr 
Greeley said of the breed, " They prefer lies to the truth." W'lien 
Richelieu founded Odessa in Russia, the men to whom he refused 
crooked contracts eventually got into power and forced him to 
leave the city. As he walked down the granite steps he had built, 
leading down to the sea, to take ship for France, he carried all his ' 
worldly possessions in a hand bag, and finally died in Paris a broken- 
hearted man. Today Odessa, the Chicago of Russia, is filled with 
monuments in honor of Richelieu. 

My father originated and founded the Greeley colony, and raised 
the money that made it a success. Without that money and Mr 
Greeley's friendship there would have been no colony. Mr Meeker 
spent all his own funds in the work, and borrowed more to help 
out in making improvements on the outskirts of the town, leaving 
others to occupy the choice sites for their homes. One street was 
named after him. but all the streets named by my father were 
changed to numbered streets by partisan officeholders, chiefly later 
arrivals, and more or less opposed to the ideas of the old colonists. A j 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 8g 

new numicipal system of town government in accordance with the 
state laws enabled the office-grabbing clique partly in sympathy 
with the whiskey interests, to show the old colonists that a too 
strictly temperance town was not popular with up-to-date poli- 
ticians. 

But in addition to all this, Mr Meeker was never forgiven by the 
Republican machine politicians of Colorado for swinging a majority 
of the colonists for Horace Greeley in the presidential campaign 
of 1872. That he should make his Republican newspaper, the 
Greeley Tribune, an independent paper, and work in an " unholy 
alliance " with the hated Democrats, to elect Horace Greeley Presi- 
dent, was little less than a crime ; and, when the ticket was defeated, 
the machine Republicans, overwhelmingly entrenched behind corrupt 
politics in Denver, always shouting for the old flag and an appro- 
priation, had no further use for Mr Meeker; and, when it was 
proposed to place his portrait among those of the other pioneers 
ill the State Capitol, it was promptly voted down by the political 
ring then in control of state politics. They forgot that the territory 
was strongly Democratic until Mr Aleeker brought his colony there 
and won a handsome Republican majority for the first time in the 
history of Colorado. 

Later came the tragedy of White river, when Mr Meeker los^ his 
life in the Ute massacre while trying to educate the Indians in the 
ways of industry and civilization. Such was the fate of Colorado's 
best friend ; not only founder of its most successful colony but the 
first to advocate practical upland irrigation and beet sugar produc- 
tion in Colorado, as the files of the newspapers and records of that 
day will show. 

Happily, more true men came to the colony than corrupt and 
worthless ones, and the original spirit of the organizers continued to 
sway public sentiment, until the gospel of thrift and decency became 
thoroughly established with the aid of live churches and good 
schools. 

ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR OLIVER HOWARD 

Professor Oliver Howard, one of the faithful original colonists, 
who pursued his literary studies while carrying on a dairy and fruit 
farm, who wrote stories for the Youth's Companion, and finally 
served as editor of the Greeley Tribune, prepared an address on 
Mr Greeley, which was given as follows : 

One hundred years ago today this 3d day of February 191 1. 



90 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Horace (lrcclc\ was burn in the town of Amherst, New Hampshire. 
He was a frail Httle fellow and his parents were fearful that they 
could not raise him; but he lived to become a strong man and as the 
founder of the New York Tribune became one of the greatest edi- 
tors that e\"er lived, his influence extending into the homes of 
millions. 

\\'hile people in other sections of the country may think of him 
as a great journalist, we of Union colony, and the city of Greeley, 
Colorado, have reason to think of him and speak of him today as 
our " Patron Saint " who not only gave us his name, but who sym- 
pathized with our upbuilding and watched our progress with a hope 
that was an inspiration to our people. 

During the last three years of Mr Greeley's life he did that which 
will forever be remembered with gratitude by the inhabitants of 
this city of our ardent affections that bears the name of the great 
editor. 

While Mr Greeley did not originate the scheme for the founding 
of Union colony and the city of Greeley in northern Colorado, it 
may not be too much to say that but for the help and sympathy he 
gave to Nathan C. Meeker, the projector of the enterprise, there 
would have been no colony and no city. It was the great New York 
Tribune that told a vast number of people that N. C. Meeker wished 
to found an ideal community consisting of " temperate, moral, in- 
dustrious, intelligent men who would like to make homes in the far 
West." " The persons with whom I would be willing to associate," 
Mr Meeker continued in the Tribune call, " must be temperance 
men and ambitious to establish good society ; and those who are , 
idle, immoral, intemperate, or inefificient need not apply for they will I 
not be received ; nor would they feel at home." | 

Mr Greeley saw in this proposed association of earnest, efficient ■ 
people the hope of establishing a community uncursed by many of 
the vices that civilization seems an heir to; and so with words of A 
encouragement, by the loan of money to Mr Meeker, and more 
than all by the generous fostering of the project in his great paper, 
the colony became a remarkable success. On the 12th of October 1 
1870, Mr Greeley paid a visit to the town named in his honor. 
Nearly the whole population of the place welcomed him with three 
rousing cheers. Says Captain Boyd in his valuable " History of 
Greeley " : 

" He was conducted to the Greeley Tribune building, where it was 
arranged he should address the people. A hasty stand was erected 
in front of the office and from this he talked to the people in a calm. 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 9I 

fatherly way giving them what he beheved good, practical advice. 
He found fault that so little had been done in the country compared 
with the town." 

In the beginning Mr Greeley had been made the treasurer of the 
colony and out of consideration for the favors that he had shown 
the colonists and the work he had done in their behalf, certain par- 
cels of land were donated to him. 

After the death of Mr Greeley, November 29, 1872, an appeal 
was made to the town of Greeley to contribute toward a monument 
in Greenwood cemetery, New York, to be erected to the memory 
of our patron saint. Mr Meeker replied that his city could con- 
tribute nothing to the proposed monument, being already engaged 
in raising a monument to the memory of Horace Greeley greater 
than could ever be raised elsewhere. 

What Captain Boyd has so eloquently said regarding the founder 
of this colony and city, N. C. Meeker, might as properly be para- 
phrased of the man who aided our people by word, sympathy and 
money and for whom the city was named. They are raising to him 
a monument more enduring than brass. Every brick block, every 
church, every schoolhouse, every beautiful residence erected in 
Greeley, is a monument to- him. Every tree planted, every lawn 
clothed in grass and bordered with flowers, every field waving with 
grain in and around Greeley is a monument to Horace Greeley. 
Every bird that sings in the branches of our trees that border the 
fields and every bee that hums in our clover lawns or fields of alfalfa, 
sings or hums a requiem to Horace Greeley. 

On the 23d of November 1872, just six days before his death, 
Mr Greeley wrote for the last time to Mr Meeker. That letter, 
written by a dying man. was one to touch the heart of every citizen 
of the place bearing the name of this friendly sponsor. At that 
moment Mr Greeley must have been suffering as few men have ever 
been called to sufifer. The sale of his great history had ceased 
because he signed the bail bond that set Jefferson Davis free ; he 
had met defeat, terrible defeat, as a candidate for the Presidency 
of the United States ; he had campaigned over a vast territory, mak- 
ing marvelous political speeches, with little time for rest or recuper- 
ation ; numbers of his old friends had turned against him ; never 
was a public man more cruelly caricatured than the great editor 
by Thomas Nast ; the dearest aspiration of his life had met with 
swift and terrible defeat ; he had watched by the side of his dying 
wife till for a month he had not slept one hour in twenty- four; he 
knew that his brain was on fire, for he had said that unless his wife 



92 THE UNIVERSITY f)F THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

passed away soon he would rcacli a grave before her. In llie midst 
of all his disappoiiilments and sorrows, knowing full well that his 
end was near, he could still think to say " precious, trustful, hope- 
ful words." Here is the letter: 

Nov. 2^, 1872 

Friend Meeker: I have yours of the 7th instant. 1 presume you 
have already drawn on me for the $1000 to buy land. If you have 
not, please do so at once. I have not much money and probably 
never shall have ; but I believe in Union colony and you, and con- 
sider this a good investment for my children. 

Horace Greeley 

This is a good time to dedicate ourselves anew to the splendid 
principles that he enunciated at the founding of our colony. He 
believed in total abstinence from intoxicants. He dared to stand 
fearlessly with the temperance party when ridicule was in the air. 
Never was there a man with a more sublime courage. The stand he 
took for the release of Jefiferson Davis from prison he must have 
known would be generally unpopular with the ex-soldiery of the 
North, as was his advocacy of general and complete amnesty for 
the men who had so lately tried to destroy the government he loved 
so well ; and yet time has proved that he was in the right. 

Mr Greeley's religious convictions were as settled as any he held. 
He was a Universalist. He illustrated the beneficence of the great 
Ruler of the earth by drawing from human history the truth that 
love and forgiveness are more potent than hatred and revenge. 
From this thought it was but a step for him to conclude that it 
would be impossible for the Eternal Father to condemn any of his 
children to never-ending torment. 

George W. Bungay, who knew him well, says of him: " He had 
no peer in the realm of newspaperdom. Horace Greeley was him- 
self a king. He dared to do right. He wanted the slave to have 
a fair chance. He was the brave champion of the rights of man 
irrespective of color, creed, condition or nationality. He was a 
political reformer, excellent writer, philanthropist and agricultural 
teacher. The weekly Tribune was read each week by more than 
200,000 people. Mr Greeley was happy in the consciousness that he 
was receiving the golden opinions of all sorts of people." 

Strange as it may seem to the educators of today, Horace Greeley 
commenced attending school at the age of three, being carried, dur- 
ing bad weather, on his father's shoulders. But he had learned to 
read children's books considerably earlier than this. At his mother's 
knee he had learned numerous poems and legends handed down 



IIORAl !•: CKIiKr.KN- M K.M( )RI.\ I. 93 

from her Scotch-Irish ancestors. At the age of four he was able 
to read ordinary books, it making little difference to him whether 
the book was upside down- or sidewise. It is told of him that he 
attended spelling schools, being even at the age of three a remark- 
able speller, and sometimes he would have to be awakened from 
sleep when it came his turn to spell. He had no legal right to attend 
a certain school, Imt the school committee passed a resolution that 
no one should be allowed to attend their school from outside the 
district except Horace Greeley. As his years increased he read 
everything he could lay his hands upon, reading even while running 
errands ; and what he read he remembered so tirmly that he came 
to be looked upon as authority. 

The boy Greeley was determined to become a ])rinter, and 
offered his services at a printing office at the age of eleven but was 
refused as too young. After various experiences in printing offices, 
at the age of twenty he entered New York City, perhaps in imitation 
of Franklin's uncouth entrance into Philadelphia. The parallel be- 
tween the two men caused the poet \\'hittier to refer to him as 
" the later h^ranklin." He was now a tall, slim youth with almost 
white hair and pale blue eyes. He had a habit of wearing his hat 
on the back of his head that gave him a decidedly green appearance. 
As to clothing, he hardly made a respectable appearance, as he gave 
the greater part of the money that came into his hands to his father, 
who was always in need of it. After many disappointments the 
shabl)v young printer was set to work on a polyglot Bible, a job so 
difficult that few printers would stay with it. When Mr West, the 
office boss, came in he said to the foreman : " Did you hire that 
fool?" The foreman said that this was the best he could do and 
he had to ha\e hands. " Well." said the master, " pay him oft" to- 
night and let him go about his business." 

While the other printers were tittering and making fun of the 
new printer, one of them made three distinct daubs ujion the flaxen 
hair of Greeley with printer's ink. The abused youth took no notice 
whatever of this indignity but worked away on his polyglot Bible, 
steadily and silently. That night the boss was surprised to find that 
young Greeley had done the most correct work that had yet been 
done on this unwelcome job and then there was no thought of send- 
ing him adrift. 

That night Horace spent an hour cleansing his dishonored locks. 
This incident of the printer's ink, and the failure to resent the insult 
with his fists was characteristic of the boy and the man ; for Horace 
Greeley when personally attacked was a nonresistant and meekly 



94 'f'lli LNIVERSITV OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

bowed his head to injuries, liiat, with many a man, would have re- 
sulted in bloodshed. 

In 1834 Mr Greeley began editing his paper. The New Yorker, 
but after six years it went under, the firm owing him $10,000, all 
of which was sunk ; but the debts continued to harass him, causing 
him to say: " For my own part, and 1 speak from sad experience, 
I would rather be a convict in State's prison, a slave in a rice swamp, 
than to pass through life under the harrow of debt." 

In 1841 the New York Tribune was started and Thomas Mc- 
Elrath entering into partnership soon after, the journal was soon 
established on a firm and paying basis. Mr Greeley had definite opin- 
ions on all subjects, and, if he made fast friends, he also made bitter 
enemies ; but the plan of employing noted people to write for the 
Tribune, such as Bayard Taylor, Margaret Fuller, George Ripley, 
Charles A. Dana and Moncure D. Conway made it indispensable 
to intelligent people of all parties. 

Mr Greeley visited Europe twice, acting once as a judge at the 
world's fair in London and later being pounced upon and sent to 
prison for two days while in Paris through an unwarranted attempt 
to make him pay a certain artist $2500 for the breaking of a statue 
at a time when Mr Greeley was a director of the world's fair at 
New York and hence claimed to be answerable for the damage done. 
He served for a few months as a representative in Congress, where 
he created great excitement by obtaining the figures and showing 
that the congressmen were drawing pay from the treasury for mile- 
age by computing the same by the most roundabout routes to and 
from Washington ; he also made a vigorous kick at the franking 
abuses, but neither of these wrongs has ever been redressed. 

In 1859 he crossed the continent by stage coach to figure out the 
possibility of a great Pacific railroad, and after visiting Denver, 
which then consisted of one hundred log cabins built of cottonwood, 
turned northward to Fort Laramie, mentioning the crossing of the 
Cache la Poudre, and oddly enough claiming even then that this 
country would one day be settled up. 

In many matters Mr Greeley was the most inconsistent of men. 
For instance : while decrying the running in debt, he cared little for 
money, and, although receiving in his later life $10,000 per annum 
as editor of the Tribune, he seems to have been unable to save 
against a rainy day. The amount of his private charities no one 
but himself ever knew, but they must have been very great. Men 
who he knew perfectly well would never repay him a single cent, 
would come and borrow of him time after time. The congressman 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 95 

who had gambled his all away or the unfortunate man of family 
stranded in the city would seek out the great editor asking financial 
aid, and, after Mr Greeley had shown them that their stories were 
a tissue of lies, he would hand out the money, saying: " Now don't 
come back again." But many of them were sure to come again to 
get his money. There was one worthless son of a rich father, who 
would no longer pay his son's foolish debts, who obtained in a 
course of years some $15,000 of Mr Greeley. Only in one instance 
was he ever repaid a loan and that was $5, which upon investigation 
proved to have been repaid him by an insane man. And as for 
beggars, Mr Greeley said that New York City was the worst in the 
world, beggars even starting out with the deliberate intention of 
begging money for a farm. 

While Mr Greeley was clean in his person he was careless in his 
dress. Beethoven was not more addicted to the bath than Mr Gree- 
ley ; but his clothing never seemed to lit. Still he always considered 
himself well dressed. The most absurd stories were told of him on 
purpose to annoy him and sure enough he was annoyed. One of 
his city editors made some suggestion about his neck-tie, which had a 
fashion of slipping around under one ear. Said the editor : " You 
don't like my clothing and I don't like your department. You'd 
better attend to that and leave me alone ! " 

There were multitudes of people wdio actually believed that " Old 
Horace " went about with one shoe and one boot, his pants tucked 
into the boot ; that he daily dressed before a glass and purposely 
disarranged his clothing; that when election returns came in, he 
turned somersaults in his office. At length the lies that were 
circulated about him became so absurd that no one believed them. 

Mr Greeley married in 1836 and was the father of seven children, 
only one of whom survives him, his daughter, Gabrielle. In his 
" Recollections of a Busy Life," in the chapter entitled " My Dead," 
is told the affecting story of the loss of his little six-year-old 
" Pickie," a charming little fellow as beautiful as he was intelligent. 
He was attacked by Asiatic cholera and died that same day. Mr 
Greeley says : " When at last the struggle ended with his last 
breath, and even his mother saw that his eyes would never again 
open on the scenes of this world, I knew that the summer of my life 
was over and that the breath of its autumn w^as at hand, and that 
my further course must be along the downhill of life." 

This short and imperfect review of the lifework of Mr Greeley 
will close with an extract from his writings : 



gC THE UNI\'KHSITS' OF T1IF-: STATK OF NKW YORK 

My life has been busy and anxious but not joyless. ... I 
have been spared to seq the end of giant wrongs which I once 
deemed invincible in this century, and to note the silent upspringing 
and growth of principles and influences which I hail as destined to 
root out some of the most flagrant and pervading evils that remain. 

1 realize that each generation is destined to confront new and 
peculiar perils — to wrestle with temptations and seductions un- 
known to its predecessors ; yet I trust that progress is a general law 
of our being and that the ills and woes of the future shall be less 
crushing than those of the bloody and hateful past. 

So, looking calmly, yet humbly, for that close of my mortal career 
which can not be far distant, I reverently thank God for the bless- 
ings vouchsafed me in the past; and, with an awe that is not fear 
and a consciousness of demerit which does not exclude hope, await 
the opening before my steps of the gates of the Eternal World. 

ADDRESS OF COLONEL CHARLES A. WHITE 

Colonel White was unable to be present; his address, read by Miss Bertha 
Whitman, is as follows : 

This being the centennial of the birthday of that great editor, 
Horace Greeley, the person after whom the city of Greeley was 
named, it is fitting and proper that our schools should observe the 
day in paying tribute to his memory. 

Horace Greeley was born in Amherst, N. H., and started in life 
wath few opportunities, yet he rose by his own efforts to a leading 
place among the editors of his time ; and only one editor belonging 
to his class, Henry Watterson, of the Louisville Courier-Journal, 
of Kentucky, is alive today. 

The house in which Horace Greeley was born stands today in 
that little town of Amherst. It is a one-story building, with a garret 
unfinished. The eaves can almost be touched by a tall man standing 
on tiptoes. The building has never been painted, or had not been 
in 1889, when I stood near the ground upon which it stands. It 
is the intention to honor this landmark this year by a monument, 
and the old house of a poor boy who worked himself to the top , 
rung of the ladder of newspaper work will ever be an object off 
interest in the years to come. 

Horace Greeley was one of the editors who could stand at the 
case, compose and set up the editorials. How many editors are 
there today who can do it? 

The interest that Mr Greeley took in the success of the Union 
colony of Colorado, through the columns of the New York Tribune, 
made the little settlement of Greeley better known in the United 
States than many of its cities of 50,000 people or more. There can 



HORACE r,KKi;LKY MEMORIAL 97 

be no doubt that to Mr Greeley's interest in our colony enterprise 
may be attributed, in a measure, the success that attended our efforts. 
'J1iis beautiful city of Greeley today is a monument everlasting to 
tbat great editor and patriot whose name it bears. We would show 
our hearty appreciation for the generous services he rendered the 
colonists while he lived. Let us, therefore, today pay our most 
loving tribute to his memory. 

May the boys and girls of Greeley public schools imitate the 
example set by this great editor and strive earnestly to gain the top 
rung of the ladder. 



COMMEMORATIVE EXERCISES BY 
TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION NO. 6 



COMMEMORATIVE EXERCISES BY TYPO- 
GRAPHICAL UNION NO. 6 

The printers have always regarded Horace Greeley as peculiarly 
one of their own. Their interest in, and affection for, Greeley has 
been manifested at every opportunity. Typographical Union No. 6 
was originally formed under the name of the " New York Printers' 
Union," of which Horace Greeley was the first president. The 
history of Typographical Union No. 6 was published in 1913 by 
the New York State Department of Labor in a " Study of a 
Modern Trade Union and Its Predecessors." According to this 
history, the union had taken steps to celebrate Greeley's natal day 
in the year 1909, but later on determined to defer the celebration 
until 191 1, Greeley's hundredth birthday anniversary. 

On November 30, 1910, Mr Jacob Erlich wrote a letter to Mr 
James Tole, president of the union, asking him to arrange for 
" appropriate exercises on Greeley Day," to which Mr Tole promptly 
replied that he would refer the letter to a committee already " work- 
ing upon the matter of properly celebrating the centenary of the 
birth of our first president." The committee was composed of 
John F. McCabe, chairman, John F. Lane, William F, Wetzel, John 
F. Crossland and James H. Dahm, secretary. 

Typographical Union No. 6 observed the occasion on vSunday 
afternoon, February 5, 191 1, at the New York Theater. The 
history which we have mentioned gives in part the following ac- 
count of the memorial meeting, at page 637 : 

The auditorium, proscenium boxes and balconies of the theater 
were crowded with printers and their friends, among whom were 
a number of prominent personages. President James Tole of 
Union No. 6 presided, and on the stage, besides invited guests, were 
many of the former presidents of the organization. The musical 
program consisted of soprano solos by Mme. Alma Webster Powell, 
and violin selections by Miss Marie Deutscher, together with several 
appropriate numbers by a large orchestra conducted by Professor 
Max Schmidt. 

The addresses follow : 

ADDRESS OF THE CHAIRMAN 

JAMES TOLE, PRESIDENT OF TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION NO. 6 

It is fitting that Typographical Union No. 6 should today bring 
to a close the three-days' series of celebrations of the birth of 
Horace Greeley, its first president. Greeley was noted for many 

lOI 



I02 Till-: I'Nivr.Rsrrv of tiif. state of new york 

things, but \vc wisli to reincnibcM' him as IJorace Greeley the printer. 
What emotions are stirred by the mere utterance of those simple 
words! From 1850 to 191 1, in the counting of time, is but the 
l^assing of a shadow. Vet in the tleeting of years nati(jns and 
peojjles have run the gamut of change; heroes have disported their 
laurel wreaths ami passed away; statesmen and great men in all 
lines of endeavor have enjoyed the sweets of their greatness, and 
have then stepi)ed from the gaze of the moment. But we have 
been endowed with the blessed faculty of memory — that memory 
which at l)idding conjures to the mind the glories of the past and 
maintains oiu" veneration of those to whose examples we owe so 
much. 

It is, therefore, with more than pride and gratitude that we of 
the printing craft speak and think of Horace Greeley as a printer. 
Should we not l)c ])roud, indeed, to remember that in the hour of 
his greatest triumphs he, too, was proud that he was a printer? 

And how grateful are we that the first line written in the glorious 
history of our organization emanated from so great a mind. For 
on January i, 1850 — sixty-one years ago — the New York Printers' 
Union was organized, and Greeley was its- first president. 

The inspiring figure of Horace Greeley has surely spurred on to 
ambitious heights many of our craftsmen who followed him, and 
who themselves have attained to high honors in the land. Notable 
names might I)e mentioned of those who, like the subject of the 
day, left the printers" case to take their places in the highest in- 
telligence of the day. 

The printers' trade has been described as " the art preservative." 
It is more ; it is the avenue through which was approached the 
v>-onderful career of this immortal American, whose impress upon 
the social and political history of our country is written in lines 
ot grateful remembrance. It may be that, when the present fades 
away in the shadows of the past — when the children of the future 
shall have become the moldcrs of the nation's destiny, when the 
press of new and strange things fills the public mind — it may be 
that the world at large will but hazily think of the commanding 
intellect of the ])rinter in honor of whose memory we are now 
assembled. 

But the " art preservative of all arts " — the art of which he was 
so ardent a disciple — keeps forever the indelible record of his life, 
forever furnishing deepest inspiration, encouraging ambition to 
great achievements. 

No grander character springs from history's pages than this man. 



i 




JAMES TOLE 

(Foreman, New York Globe pressroom) 
Speaker at centenary observance, Typographical Union No. 6, Februarys ,i9ii 



HORACE GREELEY AIEMORIAL IO3 

who, first perceiving- the need of reforms in trade conditions then 
existing, was the first to set about efifecting those reforms. No 
union printer of the present day can fail to appreciate the efforts 
of this pioneer to estabhsh the craft upon a basis deserving the 
respect of the community. Who shall say that the widespreading 
influence and power of the International Typographical Union are 
not due to the energies of those who laid our foundations more 
than half a century ago? 

The man who began by putting into type the thoughts of others, 
who later aspired even to the highest honor within the gift of his 
countrymen — was a printer. Never forgetting his early training 
and associations in a printing office, it is a matter of record that 
among his most active work in New York City was that in the 
direction of elevating his chosen craft, and the success of his labors 
is now evidenced in the position of influence of the present union 
of 7000 members, of which he was the first president — a union 
then of 27 members. 

Since the stirring days of his activities in our ranks others have 
appeared and performed their allotted duties among men ; men and 
times and conditions have changed; adversities have been met and 
conquered; we have been torn by strife and at times have been 
forced almost to the last issue in order to maintain our integrity. 
But throughout it all — even in the darkest hour, when hope was 
ebbing low — there was always before us the indomitable spirit of 
the man who set our ship afloat, the man who knew how to battle 
for right, whose fearlessness and determination are today the pride 
and glory of every American union printer. 

Fitting it is, then, that on this day, in various parts of the 
country, assemblages such as this one have gathered together to pay 
tribute to the memory of this great American. Men of the journalist 
profession are today extolling the qualities of the genius whose 
magic has widened the scope of their endeavors, and whose name is 
linked forever with the highest and purest ideals. They will speak 
reverently of him not only as the leading editor of his time, as the 
greatest power in journalism of his day, but also as an astute states- 
man, a true and keen observer of the trend of events. 

Journalist, statesman, thinker, reformer, man of affairs he was. 
leaving behind him the ineffaceable record of his greatness ! But 
our fondest thought of him is of the man in all his simple earnest- 
ness, the worker in the ranks of his fellow men, ever striving for 
the general uplift of mankind and thinking of himself merely as 
Horace Greeley — the printer. 



I04 THE univp:ksity of the state of new york 

H(3RACE GREELEY AND THE CAUSE OF LABOR 

ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE, UNITED STATES SENATOR 

The labor problem is the funtlaniental problem. Believing this, 
Horace Greeley was, in his time, the prophet of a brighter day for 
those who toil. The great journal which he founded became, in a 
critical period, the trumpet of American conscience ; yet even above 
his fame as one of the most brilliant journalists the world has 
produced stands his renown as a champion of the rights of labor. 

The welfare of men, women, and children who must eat their 
bread in the sweat of their faces was his deepest concern. Wise 
counselor of the toiling masses, he also was a fearless fighter to 
better their conditions. What Horace Greeley believed in, that he 
fought for. 

Even in his early manhood Horace Greeley saw that simple and 
sublime truth that the laborer is not merely a commodity, but a 
human being, and therefore that every phase of the labor problem 
can be solved only from this Christian viewpoint. 

The old and savage theory that the workingman is merely mer- 
chandise like a sack of flour or a bucket of coal or a threshing 
machine ; that the life energies of man, woman and child should 
be bought in a labor market at the lowest price which the com- 
petition of hunger made possible ; that the employer need not think 
of the employee as a human being but only as a working animal to 
be used until exhausted and then cast aside — that idea is the child 
of brutal barbarism. 

It came down to us from the hideous past. It has built more 
hovels and prevented the building of more homes; placed more 
broken human beings in their graves and filled the abiding places of 
mankind with more misery and woe than all the wars that have 
cursed the world. This apparently is extreme ; yet it is but a care- 
fully guarded statement of facts established by history and statistics. 

To Horace Greeley this idea of human labor was horrible. It 
would be better for the nation and all the world if the master minds 
directing the material forces of our time could see this as Horace 
Greeley saw it. 

It would be better if the principle of brotherhood should enter 
into all our industry and commerce, making human the harsh prin- 
ciple of commercialism — ■ the principle of profit at any cost, of 
gain at any sacrifice, even the sacrifice of human happiness and life. 

And, indeed, more and more is this transpiring. More and more 
the principle of brotherhood is making its conquest of our industrial 




specially taken for this work 



HOUSE AT POULTXEV, VERMUM 

Where Horace Greeley lived when he began his newspaper career. 
(Building still standing) 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL IO5 

and commercial life. More and more the idea that the laborer is 
a human being serving his employer in fellowship for their mutual 
welfare is overcoming the idea that the workingman is a mere tool, 
a senseless mechanism to be used only for his employer's profit 
until his industrial effectiveness is gone and then thrown helpless, 
hopeless and ruined into the great human scrapheap like a wrecked 
machine or ashes of burned-out fuel. 

For the present progress and final triumph of the idea of the 
laborer as a human being as much if not more credit is due Horace 
Greeley than to any other single American intellect. His declaration 
that " Man was not made merely to eat, work and sleep " went to 
the hearts of his countrymen when he uttered it and comes to us 
today like the burning words of the Hebrew prophets. 

His battle cry was, " A place for every man and a man for every 
place." He declared that " Dives might perhaps give Lazarus a 
steady job of oakum-picking, or even gardening, in order to keep 
the crumbs about his table for his dogs exclusively, without at all 
recognizing the essential brotherhood between them or doing any- 
thing to vindicate it." 

For an hour I might quote such utterances of Horace Greeley. 
But he did not stop with these splendid generalities. With the vigor 
of conviction he gave them point and substance by concrete plans 
for labor's betterment. 

He was among the greatest of the advocates of organized labor. 
He saw not only the inhumanity that the toiler suffered from want 
of organization ; saw not only that the disorganization of labor and 
the organization of capital made possible " man's inhumanity to 
man " which " makes countless thousands mourn," but also he saw 
that lack of organization among laborers caused incredible waste 
and loss. 

It was Horace Greeley who declared that " The aggregate waste 
of labor and faculty for want of organization in any year exceeds 
the cost of any war for five years, ruinous and detestable as all 
war is. It is palpable fatuity and criminal waste of the divine 
bounty to let this go on interminably." 

And so Horace Greeley preached the righteousness and wisdom 
of the organization of labor. He was our great American cham- 
pion of the brotherhood of toil. Not even today does any economist 
more thoroughly understand the philosophy of the organization of 
labor than Horace Greeley understood it three-quarters of a century 
ago. And no man today expounds with more guarded thoughtful- 
ness or brilliant argument the common sense and beneficence of 



106 'J'lll': UXINKKSITV OK 'llll': Sl'ATI': UF AEW VORK 

organized labor than did this journalistic tribune of the people from 
early manhood to the very sunset of his life. 

He thought, spoke and fought for improved laljor conditions in 
e\ery phase of labor's activity and life. He believed labor entitled 
to higher wages. Horace Greeley thought that labor, which, jointly 
with capital, produces this wealth, should get an increased and 
increasing share of it. 

h!ven in that day Greeley was shocked at the lightninglike accumu- 
lation of riches in the hands of a few who did little to earn them 
and the appalling increase of the thousands who asked only an 
opportunity to work that they might eat. 

No clearer light ever has been thrown on unjustifiable industrial 
and financial inequalities than Horace Greeley's remorseless analysis ; 
few stronger denunciations of this wicked condition ever were 
pronounced since the time when the Divine Equalizer gave to rrian- 
kind his sacred message two thousand years ago. 

But in nearly all he said and proposed for the welfare of the 
workingman, Greeley was carefully practical ; he did not propose 
to cure between morning and nightfall all the injustices we have 
inherited from the beginning of time. But there were some things 
upon which he did insist as immediately necessary and not to be 
compromised. One of these was a shortening of the laborer's work- 
ing day. At that time it was both law and usage to employ labor 
at the lowest possible point to which the fear of starvation could 
drive wages, and then compel the laborer to w^ork as many hours 
as the employer chose without consultation or consent of the man 
who did the work. So laborers were compelled to work twelve and 
fourteen hours, and for even longer periods, every working day. 
Greeley proposed to shorten this period of toil, either by agreement 
or by law, to a maximum of ten hours a day. The employers thought 
this meant their business injury — even their bankruptcy. Greeley 
showed them, instead, that shorter hours and higher wages meant 
the employers' increased prosperity. 

It was the same conflict between a blind and sordid selfishness 
on the one hand and a wise common-sense and humanitarianism 
on the other hand that occurred in England a few years earlier, 
when Shaftesbury and Saddler and the other British labor reformers 
began to fight for the idea of the laborer as a human being. But 
no English reformer ever put the argument for shortening hours 
of labor more compellingly than did the American Greeley. 

Aside from the economic folly of an unlimited working day, 
its crass injustice shocked Greeley's honest soul. Of this stupid 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL IO7 

wrong he said: " It would be as sensible and just to prescribe that 
a pound of meat or sugar or coffee shotild consist of just as many 
ounces as the buyer should see fit, after the price had been settled. 
to exact, or that a bushel of grain should consist of an indefinite 
nimiber of C[uarts, as that a day's work should consist of ten, eleven, 
twelve or thirteen hours' faithful labor, just as the purchaser of 
that labor should think proper to require." 

The fact that in nearly fifty trades there is at the present time 
an eight-hour day by agreement between employers and their or- 
ganized employees ; that as a result there is an increased and better 
product, a sturdier, happier and more enlightened laboring class ; 
that there are more homes and fewer hovels for these laborers, and 
that those homes have more books, music and comforts than ever 
before, is due to this humane agitation for a shorter day of labor, 
of which Horace Greeley was one of the first and greatest American 
apostles, and to the steady, intelligent efforts of organized labor, 
of which Horace Greeley was one of the first and greatest American 
champions. 

Child labor is America's peculiar industrial shame. It is a crime 
against manhood labor — every child laborer at childhood wages 
takes the place of a man laborer at manhood wages. 

It is a crime against the humane business man — his goods, made 
by manhood labor at manhood wages, must meet his competitors' 
goods made by child labor at childhood wages. 

It is a crime against childhood — every little one has an inalien- 
able, a sacred, right to grow into sound-bodied, clear-brained, pure- 
souled maturity. 

It is a crime against society ; it pours into our citizenship a 
stream of people weakened in body and mind. 

It is an insult to our religion, whose founder said : " Suft'er little 
children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the 
Kingdom of God." 

Horace Greeley was against it. Even in his day, when greed had 
scarcely begun to chain us to this body of death, he sought to 
restrain it. It was Horace Greeley who declared : " The State 
has a right to see and ought to see that the frames of the ^rising 
generation are not shattered nor their constitutions undermined by 
excessive toil. She should do this for her own sake as well as for 
humanity's. She has a vital interest in the strength and vigor of 
those who are to be her future fathers and mothers, her defenders 
in war, her cultivators and artisans in peace. . . . For whatever 



I08 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

service it may be necessary to employ labor . . . there will always 
be found an abundance of adults if proper inducements are otTered." 

Thus spoke Horace Greeley when child labor in America was a 
pleasant pastime compared with the black brutality of child labor 
in America today. 

What would he say now if he could see the reeking sweatshops, 
the clouded coal breakers, the thundering mills where scores of 
thousands of little ones are being sacrificed to Mammon in the name 
of a false prosperity. 

Here is how he summed up his unanswerable arguments for a 
higher estate for those who toil : " A better social condition, en- 
larged opportunities for good,, an atmosphere of humanity and hope, 
would insure a nobler and truer character, and that the dens of 
dissipation will clear to leave those whom a proper education has 
qualified and whom excessive toil has not disqualified for the im- 
provement of liberty and leisure." 

" Our Eden is before us, not behind us," said Horace Greeley. 
And that is true. It is a long, long march before us and we can 
reach it as all marching armies reach their destination, only by a 
step at a time. 

There are those who are impatient with this slow progress — they 
want to reach the end with a single stride. Let us not blame them, 
for hard conditions justify their impatience. 

There are those who resist any forward step whatever — they 
think humanity's advance means their financial loss. Let us not 
blame them either, but merely pity them that the lust of gain has 
blinded them to the fellowship of man. 

Most of the labor reforms which Greeley proposed and for which 
he fought already have been realized in part and ultimately and 
soon will be realized entirely. 

The ten-hour working day for which Greeley battled, against the 
unlimited working day of his time, now has grown into the eight- 
hour day from the same arguments and facts which Greeley used. 
It ought to be universal in all trades. 

From ocean to ocean organized labor is now a fact as permanent 
as the Government itself. 

The holy crusade against child labor now moving militantly for- 
ward will not cease until this stain is wiped entirely from our flag. 

In short, the day is dawning when the evils that Greeley de- 
nounced and the principal reforms which he proposed will be ac- 
complished, and the multiplying millions who produce the wealth 
of the land in peace and carry its muskets in war will more largely 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL lOQ 

enjoy life, liberty and pursuit of happiness which is their inalienable 
right. 

And when the sun of that day is fully above the horizon its glad 
light will reveal Horace Greeley as the heroic figure of that notable 
epoch for those who toil — Horace Greeley at once that epoch's 
prophet, philosopher, orator and soldier of the common good. 

HORACE GREELEY AS A JOURNALIST 

WILLIAM H. MC ELROY, FORMER EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE 

On the i/th of August 183 1, Horace Greeley, then twenty years 
old, came to New York City looking for work. He carried his 
entire fortune — upwards of ten dollars — in his pocket. He knew 
nobody, he bore letters of introduction to no citizen, desirable or 
undesirable. His nearest friend was two hundred miles away. 
Nevertheless the boy was hardly to be pitied, for he resolutely 
declined to allow poverty to blight him. On the contrary, he forced 
it to bless him by using it as a spur to w^orthy endeavor. Lacking 
visible friends, the voice of God in his own soul must have cheered 
him with the assurance that he could enlist in his service if he 
chose — and young Horace Greeley chose — friends invisible but 
most powerful ■ — a goodly company, composed of trustworthiness, 
industry, perseverance, patience, courage. 

The sister of another prominent American told me this story of 
her brother. He had risen from poverty and obscurity to riches and 
honor, had become one of the foremost men of his country. One 
afternoon as she was sitting with him in his library his son came in. 
The son was a gay young man of fashion and something of a 
" sport." He had been out driving and entered the library jauntily, 
carrying his whip in his hand. His father gazed at him a moment 
and then said, with a sigh, " Jack, do you know that I am inclined 
to pity you ? " Jack, — young, handsome, without a care, an heir to 
a fortune, naturally was amazed. " Why in the world do you pity 
me, father?" he asked. "Well, my son," his father explained, "1 
am inclined to pity you because you will never have the benefit of 
the disadvantages under which I labored at your age." Horace 
Greeley, in the days of his youth, had the benefit of a number of 
first-rate disadvantages. 

In his essay on "Representative Men," Mr Emerson writes: 
" When Nature removes a great man people explore the horizon for 
a successor. But none comes and none will. His class is ex- 



no THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

tinguislied with him." Hut the passing away of some great men 
does not seem the extinguishment of tlieir class. They go. hut their 
class survives. That is to say, sooner or later they are succeeded 
hy men who remind us of them, who perform the sort of work 
which they performed. But it was emi^hatically true of Horace 
Greeley that " his class perished with him " ; that we shall not see 
his like again. He was not only a great man hut a great man of a 
rare sort. He has heen studied from many points of view but has 
not been adequately painted, for his was a personal equation of 
which it may be said what Daniel Webster said of eloquence. 
" W'ords and phrases may be marshaled in every way ; they can not 
express it." 

The theme which has been assigned me, Horace Greeley as a 
Journalist, does not call for a survey of his career from all points 
of view, but simply for a consideration of the character and 
significance of his work in his chosen profession. Many circum- 
stances combined to make him what he was — the foremost 
journalist of his generation. He was ]ireeminently a manly man. 
a man who did his own thinking and not thinking which he inherited 
or was dictated to him. He was generously endowed with moral 
energy, intellectual resources and sympathy, of the affirmative sort, 
for all sorts and conditions of men, especially for the poor and 
oppressed. He loved work as ardently as Romeo loved Juliet. It 
was given him to labor in the most important, and therefore the most 
stimulating, newspaper field in the United States. He flourished at 
a time when there was special need of him — a time when the supply 
of food for the mind and soul furnished by the newspapers of the 
country was sadly unequal to the demand. Just as John was called 
to go crying in the wilderness, " bearing witness to the Light," 
Horace tireeley would seem to have been called to serve as guide, 
philosopher, friend to thousands of his countrymen all over the 
land. His equipment for such a task included, among its essentials, 
the pen of a fluent, forcible writer. It was wickedly said of a cer- 
tain rhapsodical poet that " He had nothing to say but he said it 
splendidly." Mr Greeley had much to say that was well worth 
listening to on a variety of topics of general interest, and he knew 
how to say it. He was a master of what has been called the art of 
putting things. His literary style was as frank and unaffected as 
his own nature. Sometimes, in the heat of a political canvass or 
in reply to a wanton attack or in the stress of one of his numberless 
controversies, his output of heated superlatives was very large. 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL III 

and substantives, losing sight of the sound old caution, " Strong 
without rage, without o'ertiowing full." 

His brother journalists of the press of the metropolis, William 
Lullen Bryant, Charles A. Dana and Henry J. Raymond, all college- 
bred men, excelled him as a writer, in certain particulars. Bryant, 
the poet-editor, was more profound and polished, Dana was his 
superior in versatility and scholarship, Raymond was more brilliant, 
more philosophic. But none of them surpassed him in mental 
robustness, none in pungent, unambiguous expression. When he 
undertook to call a spade a spade, he did so with precision — in 
terms which rendered it impossible for the reader to suppose that 
he was referring to a shovel. 

It is to be added, in enumerating the sources of Mr Greeley's 
strength as a journalist, that after the Tribune became well estab- 
lished he made a large number of lecture tours. He addressed 
lyceums, agricultural societies, mechanics' institutes, chambers of 
commerce and other bodies in various parts of the land, and in 
addition did his share of stump-speaking here and there. He was 
thus brought into personal contact with the people, and gained, at 
lirst hand, an insight into their needs and aspirations which added 
sensibly to his practical efficiency. He was proficient in few of the 
arts of oratory and still was a popular speaker — your mere 
elocutionist, however accomplished, is not listened to as attentively 
as the man behind the gun, although the man distinctly falls " below 
Demosthenes or Cicero." When Mr Greeley rose to speak, his 
hearers said to one another, " We will now^ hear from the man 
I)ehind the Tribune." I have said that, although not an orator (in 
the academic sense of the term), he was, nevertheless, a popular 
speaker. 

Andrew D. White, the distinguished ex-president of Cornell Uni- 
versity, said of one of Mr Greeley's speeches which he was privi- 
leged to hear (and Mr White was a good judge of such matters) : 
" I never heard a more simple, strong, lucid use of the English 
language." That was Horace Greeley, with tongue or with pen — 
simple, strong and lucid. 

I have thus glanced — there is time only for a glance — at funda- 
mental things which went to the making of Greeley the journalist 
and rendered him an influence whose extent and force it would be 
difficult to overestimate. From the Atlantic to the Pacific he came 
to be looked up to as the chief educator of his profession, the lead- 
ing molder of public opinion, an inspiration to wholesome, progres- 
sive, broad-gauge living. More than that, the masses, as they be- 



112 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

came acquainted with his personality, grew fond of him ; for they 
felt, and felt truly, that 

" His heart was made of simple, manly stuff. 
As home-spun as their own." 

It is to be noted that these parishioners of his did not invariably 
say amen to his utterances. Now and then they distinctly disagreed 
v/ith him. Now and then they made light of some scheme of his 
for accelerating the approach of the millennium. Now and then 
they resented his attitude touching party principles or policies or 
leaders. Now and then they called him a visionary. Not a few of 
them repudiated his war policy and greeted his signing of Jefferson 
Davis's bail bond with " curses red with uncommon wrath." But 
one thing they did not do — they never really doubted him, never 
withdrew their confidence from him. Their faith in the man was 
founded on a rock. So it is that what Lowell said of another 
illustrious American is emphatically true of Horace Greeley — he 
was a " standing testimonial to the cumulative power of character." 

Mr Greeley edited three newspapers before starting the Tribune — 
preliminary flights to test the machine. The N^ew Yorker was his 
first venture — a weekly, so the prospectus ran — devoted to 
" current literature, politics and general news." It began in March 
1834, and was discontinued in September 1841. Its demise was due 
largely to the distressing circumstance that very many of its sub- 
scribers never paid their bills. In his " Recollections of a Busy 
Life," Mr Greeley states that, when the paper stopped, these delin- 
quents, who became permanent in their delinquency, owed him ten 
thousand dollars. (It would appear from this that there were some 
bad people in New York even in " the good old days.") Mr 
Greeley's next newspaper was the Jeffersonian, a weekly campaign 
sheet in the interest of the Whig party. Price fifty cents a year. 
It was published in 1838-39 and was succeeded in 1840 by another 
and much more important campaign paper, the Log Cabin. That 
was the year when William Henry Harrison was elected President 
of the United States, and it is scarcely too much to assert that the 
Log Cabin did as much to elect him as any other agency employed 
in the canvass. It was, in fact, an ideal campaign paper, made up 
of short, telling editorials, trenchant and witty paragraphs ; wood 
cuts, crude but entertaining and effective, and " Tippecanoe " 
songs, words and music, so " catchy " and so expressive of the 
popular feeling that the country became vociferously vocal during 
that Harrison campaign. With the Log Cabin Mr Greeley com- 
pleted his newspaper novitiate; for on the loth of April 1841, he 




< 



< 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL II3 

issued the first number of the journal which was to win him im- 
perishable fame — the New York Tribune. 

All these papers, differing from one another in some respects, 
had one noteworthy characteristic in common. They were clean 
papers, wholesome papers, papers which did not pander, papers 
which declined to make friends with the mammon of unrighteous- 
ness. In his " Recollections," Mr Greeley directs attention to the 
fact that the Jeffersonian ** carefully eschewed abuse, scurrility and 
railing accusation." The Log Cabin, which he states was " more 
lively and less sedately argumentative " than its predecessor, was 
like it in avoiding abuse, scurrility and railing accusation. That it 
was determined not to strike any foul blows is attested by a letter 
which Mr Greeley wrote to one of his correspondents. In this 
letter the correspondent is informed that " Articles assailing the 
personal character of Mr Van Buren [who was General Harrison's 
competitor for the presidency] or of his supporters can not be 
printed in the Cabin." As for the Tribune, it made clear in its 
prospectus that it was bent upon conforming its conduct to a high 
moral standard. This is the essential part of the prospectus, " The 
Tribune, as its name imports, will labor to advance the interests 
of the people and to promote their moral, social and political well- 
being. The immoral and degrading police reports, advertisements 
and other matter, which have been allowed to disgrace the columns 
of our leading penny papers, will be carefully excluded from this, 
and no exertion spared to render it worthy of the hearty approval 
of the virtuous and refined and a welcome visitor at the fireside." 

Words are always cheap, but Mr Greeley conducted the Tribune 
in accordance with what he thus promised. He made it the con- 
servator of whatever things are pure, lovely and of good report. 
He made it hospitable to science, to literature and the other arts, 
fine or useful. Its columns were open to the discussion of any 
cause — including some vagaries — which was decent. It was a 
powerful and persistent champion of the rights of labor. Such was 
its devotion to freedom and such its efficiency in battling against 
her enemies, that Harper's Weekly, in its leader on the death of 
]\Ir Greeley, did not hesitate to declare that, " No single force in 
educating the nation for the terrible struggle with slavery was so 
powerful as the Tribune." Horace Greeley, as thus revealed, was 
a good and faithful ser\^ant of the people, a stalwart promoter of 
the civilization which really civilizes. 

A certain publication was once characterized as a newspaper 
" for which there is always a market but never an enthusiasm." 



114 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Mr Greeley, while nu{ lacking- a decent respect for the almighty 
dollar, aimed primarily to furnish his readers with a paper which 
vvoidd command their enthusiasm. " To do good," he said in one 
of his occasional addresses, "is the proper business of life; to 
cjualify for earnestness and efficiency in doing good, is the true 
end of education ; the sum of all the knowledge in the child is the 
consciousness that he lives not for himself, but for his Creator and 
his race." Mr Greeley's course as a journalist was in harmony 
with that exalted conception of the purpose of human life. He 
did, indeed, labor strenuously to make his paper marketable — an 
eight-hour law for others but a sixteen-hour law for Greeley, would 
seem to have been his way of disposing of one phase of the labor 
question — but it was not in the man to strive for material success 
at the expense of principle. It followed, of course, that the assump- 
tion that a newspaper is a " business enterprise," never impressed 
him. His career justified the inference that in his view a newspaper 
is not a business enterprise in any sense which puts it in a different 
class, so far as moral obligation is concerned, from that in which 
tlie business enterprise of preaching the Gospel belongs. In other 
words, it was Mr Greeley's conviction that the editor of a newspaper 
in his sanctum in the discharge of the duties of his vocation, is 
just as amenable to the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, the 
precepts of the Sermon on the Mount as the minister in his pulpit 
in the discharge of the duties of his vocation. It behooves the 
minister to preach the truth as he sees it, whether men will hear or 
whether they will forbear. It no less behooves the editor — so Mr 
Greeley held, and he " put his creed into his deed " — to print only 
what he himself regards as reputable, wdiether men take or refuse 
to take his paper. 

Mr Greeley had a decided opinion on the much-mooted question, 
as to what a newspaper ought and ought not to print. One of the 
current New York dailies takes for its motto, " All the news that's 
fit to print " ; the motto of another is " All the news that is news." 
Charles A. Dana, in an address before a newspaper association, 
defined news to be " anything which interests the people." He 
went on to say that, " Whatever Divine Providence permits to occur 
I am not too proud to print." Mr Greeley, on the other hand, in a 
letter written to Mr Dana while that gentleman was a member of 
the Tribune staff, exclaimed, " Oh, my friend, the wisdom which 
teaches us what should not lie said, that is the hardest to be ac- 
(|uire(l of all ! " Mr Greeley did not bc]ie\e in reporting " wdiatever 
Divine Pro\i(lence permitted to occur." He drew the line some- 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL II5 

where. Divine Providence permitted Sodom and Gomorra to occur. 
But. judging from the convictions which Mr Greeley expressed on 
tl-,e subject of newspaper pubhcity. he would have held that an 
unvarnished report of the doings at Sodom and Gomorra, when the 
lid was off. would have been eligible only for the wastebasket. 

Mr Greeley was profoundly in earnest. There was nothing per- 
functory, nothing lukewarm in his journalistic work. His utter- 
ances had their root in strong convictions. Henry J. Raymond was 
credited with saying to a friend that he himself never finished a 
sentence without a profound feeling chat it was only partially true. 
Mr Greeley was too thoroughgoing, too decided in his opinions, 
to have experienced such a feeling. It is related of Charles Sumner 
that once in the United States Senate, while he was indulging in 
a peculiarly fierce philippic against slavery, a fellow senator ven- 
tured to ask him to consider the other side. " Sir." thundered 
Sunmer. " there isn't any other side." When Greeley sat down to 
express his views on slavery, protection. Whiggisni. Republicanism, 
Henry Clay, or on any of his other favorite themes, there wasn't 
any other side, so far as he was concerned. He wrote with the 
serene confidence of one who is enunciating axioms, and. although 
his utterances did not invariably harmonize with one another — 
the utterances of progressive men seldom do — there was an air of 
something very like infallibility about them. It was not unnatural, 
therefore, that the Tril^une came to be regarded by many of its 
readers as of only less authority than the Bible itself. Mr Depew. 
at the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Tribune, brought 
out this circumstance in his own characteristically racy way. We 
quote from his address: " ' Why do you look so gloomy? ' said a 
traveler riding along the highway in the W^estern Reserve, in the 
old antislavery days, to a farmer wdio was sitting moodily on a 
fence. ' Because,' said the farmer. ' my Democratic friend next 
door got the best of me in an argument last night. But when I 
get my semiweekly Tribune tomorrow I'll knock the foundations 
all out from under him.' When I was a lad in the country," Mr 
Depew continued, " I have frequently observed a man drive in ten 
miles to the village post office for his weekly Tribune, and the same 
person, when term closed, came up to the academy for his boy. I 
could see no dift'erence in the affectionate tenderness and eager 
])!easure with which he grasped his paper or embraced his son." 

What a political journalist Horace Greeley was ! In a popular 
government such as ours, a government through parties, politics 
is virtually a continuous performance. While he was as yet but a 



Il6 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

little more than a baby he became immersed in politics and he 
remained immersed in them as long as he lived. He may not, 
indeed, have compiled election returns in his cradle, but he informs 
us that he was " an ardent politician when not yet half old enough 
to vote." In his " Recollections " he recollects more politics than 
anything else. He came to know the political complexion of the 
entire country about as thoroughly as a ward leader knows the 
politics of his ward. One of the stories illustrative of his genius 
for remembering election figures relates that a messenger came 
into the Tribune office the night of a presidential election with 
telegrams, one of which read that a certain small town in southern 
Ohio had given the Republican ticket a majority of two hundred. 
Mr Greeley listened while the telegram was being read and then 
observed, " That town gave us two hundred and twenty majority 
the last time." He was an indefatigable and enthusiastic party man, 
striving with all his might for Whig or Republican success. Never- 
theless, he refused to allow politics to interfere with the exercise 
of his private judgment. To employ a political phrase, politics 
never got the delegates away from his independence. He per- 
m.anently retained the captaincy of his own soul. " I accept un- 
reservedly," he once wrote, " the views of no man, dead or living. 
' The master has said it,' was never conclusive with me. Even 
though I have found him right nine times, I do not take his tenth 
proposition on trust; unless that also be proved sound I reject it." 
In accordance with this unreserved declaration of independence was 
the fair warning which he addressed to whom it might concern, in 
starting the Tribune, that the paper was not going to be a sub- 
servient party organ. " Earnestly believing," he frankly said, " that 
the political revolution which has called William Henry Harrison 
to the chief magistracy of the nation was a triumph of right, reason 
and public good over error and sinister ambition, the Tribune will 
give to the new administration a frank and cordial but manly and 
independent support, judging it always by its acts and commending 
those only so far as they shall seem calculated to subserve the great 
end of all government — the welfare of the people." To the same 
effect, but more emphatic, is the account which he gives in his 
" Recollections " of the place in New York journalism which he 
intended that the Tribune should make for itself. " My leading 
idea was," he explains, " the establishment of a journal removed 
alike from servile partisanship, on the one hand, and from gagged, 
mincins: neutralitv on the other. ... I believed there was a 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 11/ 

happy medium between these extremes — a position from which a 
journaHst might openly and heartily advocate the principles and 
commend the measures of that party to which his convictions allied 
him, yet frankly dissent from its course on a particular question, 
and even denounce its candidates if they were shown to be deficient 
in capacity or (far worse) in integrity." Roscoe Conkling once 
affirmed that he did not know how to belong to a party a little. 
Mr Greeley fought a good fight for the Whig party and for the 
Republican party. Neither of these organizations had in its ser- 
vice a stouter champion than he. But, although he did not belong 
to them a " little," but a great deal, he did not belong to either so 
much as to hesitate to criticize party measures or party representa- 
tives whenever the conclusion was forced upon him that they 
deserved criticism. " To thine own self be true " was an admoni- 
tion to which he ever rendered implicit obedience. 

I have thus touched upon the leading sources of Mr Greeley's 
conspicuous success as a journalist. It was a logical success — the 
natural result of a wise use of great gifts and great opportunities. 
Wendell Phillips, while sharply assailing the newspaper press, paid 
it what was really a superb compliment. He gave it as his opinion 
that America owed to the newspapers one-half, if not more, of her 
development. ' It is not too much to assert that Horace Greeley 
contributed in a greater degree than any other journalist of his 
day to that development, by his incessant activity in behalf of the 
forces which make for progress of the best sort. 

I am tempted, before concluding, to tell two stories about Mr 
Greeley of which I am especially fond. One of them was a favorite 
of George William Curtis, and this is his version of it : 

" When Horace Greeley was in Paris he was one morning looking 
vv^ith an American friend at the pictures of the Louvre and talking 
of this country. ' The fact is,' said Mr Greeley, ' that what we need 
is a darned good licking.' An Englishman who stood by and heard 
the conversation smiled eagerly as if he knew a nation that would 
like to administer the castigation. ' Yes, sir,' said he complacently, 
rubbing his hands with appetite and joining in the conversation. 
' that is just what you do want.' ' But the difficulty is,' continued 
Mr Greeley to his friend, as if he had heard nothing, ' the difficulty 
is that there is no nation in the world that can lick us.' " 

The other story was told me by the late Clinton B. Fisk — for 
whom possibly some of you failed to vote when he was the Pro- 
hibition candidate for the presidency in 1888. I met Mr Fisk at 
a Rutgers College dinner, and in the course of conversation Mr 



Il8 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Greeley was mentioned. " I knew Mr Greeley very well," said 
Mr Fisk, " and had many a long talk with him. After the Civil 
War we were accustomed when we met to discuss it from many 
points of view. I recall an occasion when Mr Greeley concluded all 
he had to say in regard to a certain point by remarking, ' Clinton, 
the more I think of it the more lirmly convinced I become that just 
as soon as the war was over we ought to have freely and fully 
forgiven all our southern brethren — the devil take them!'" The 
story illustrated what his war policy always revealed, his loving 
kindness toward the South, and emphasized in a droll way, that in 
spite of that loving kindness, he had become very tired of the 
southern question. 

Members of Typographical Union No. 6, you may well be proud 
that this illustrious American who began the battle of life as a 
typesetter, a veritable printer's devil, was one of the founders and 
the first president of your organization. You do well to celebrate 
the centennial of his birth, for to ponder upon what Horace Greeley 
was and did is an exercise at once pleasant and profitable. It is a 
potent incentive to worthy living. It refreshes our faith in human 
nature. It is full of encouragement to the youth of our land who 
find themselves, as he found himself when a lad, poor and friend- 
less, at the foot of the ladder of fortune. Mr Greeley has taken 
his place in history as one of the leaders of the journalism of the 
nineteenth century. He had his eccentricities, his weaknesses, his 
limitations. No man of his day had more fun poked at him or 
was a more frequent target for caricature. But he could have dis- 
posed of his critics by saying to them what Cromwell said to the 
artist to whom he was sitting for his portrait, " Paint me as I am, 
warts and all." Cromwell could afford to be thus painted because 
he was Cromwell. Today Horace Greeley looms large, and his 
shortcomings seem but the small dust of the balance because they 
were the shortcomings of such a man. One of his biographers 
asserts that Mr Greeley never was a " man of the world." No, he 
was not ; but a man does not have to be that sort of a man to be a 
man of the best kind. Indeed, there is the highest authority for 
holding that to *' become as a little child " is to attain to what is 
best in manhood. Mr Greeley possessed in its fulness the childlike 
spirit. He had a child's enthusiasm, a child's tenderness of heart, 
a child's confiding disposition, a child's unsophisticated simplicity. 
His life was a strenuous one, full of vicissitudes. Neglect, appre- 
ciation, joy, sorrow, failure, success, obscurity, fame — he experi- 
enced all of them but was overcome by none. He knew how to be 











From collection polilical tokens Stale Historian J. A. Holden 

CAMPAIGN OF i860 

Badges worn by partizans of the principal parties of that period with 
a rare " Jefif Davis " medalet 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I19 

abased and how to abound and in all times of his prosperity and 
in all times of his adversity he kept faith with the ideals which 
dominated his soul when, before he had attained to man's estate, 
he came to New York to seek his fortune. It is as a journalist 
that I have been considering him, but because what the catechism 
calls " the chief end of man " is not achievement but character, I 
prefer, in closing my address, to contemplate Mr Greeley apart from 
his vocation as a member of that Brotherhood of Man whose wel- 
fare he did so much to promote. When Walter Scott realized that 
for him the " inevitable hour " was about to strike, he gave his 
son-in-law, Lockhart, to whom he was devotedly attached, a fare- 
well greeting, and, although Sir Walter was one of the leading 
literary lights of his age, literature had no place in that valedictory. 
He simply said to Lockhart, so one of his biographers tells us, 
" Be a good man, my dear." If Horace Greeley, in response to the 
numberless expressions of love and admiration which his one 
hundredth birthday has inspired could send a message to you and 
the rest who celebrate him, we may be sure that he would say 
something which would make for the betterment of all classes and 
conditions of humanity. There was much in his sterling manhood 
which suggested Abraham Lincoln. They had their differences in 
war times, but were ever closely allied by the fervent, unselfish 
patriotism which they possessed in common. So there is full warrant 
for believing that the centennial message of Plorace Greeley would 
harmonize with, and perchance re-echo, the solemn admonition which- 
Abraham Lincoln addressed to his countrymen from the hallowed 
ground of Gettysburg, " See to it that government of the people, 
by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth." 

LETTERS 

So far as is known, the oldest printer in the metropolis who holds 
a certificate of membership signed by Horace Greeley as president 
of the New York Printers' Union is Charles Vogt. who was born 
in 1823. We quote part of his letter, which was read at the 
meeting : 

" A desire to add a meetl of praise and admiration to that of the 
host of others has induced me to note a few incidents in the life of 
Llorace Greeley, that grand old man, whom I saw quite early in 
his professional career; when he was exerting all his intellectual and 
physical powers to achieve success in establishing the New Yorker 
in 1838, when the office was located in the rear building of 29 Ann 
street. There were three hands besides myself — Mr Bowe, the 



120 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

foreman, Mr Winchester and Mr Swain, who set up the piece of 
music that always graced the last page of that popular newspaper. 
Mr Greeley would often ' lend a hand ' when the paper was behind, 
by setting up a few stickfuls. His bent attitude while standing at 
the case, and bobbing motion while setting type, are vividly impressed 
on my memory. If he ' pied ' a line, his proverbial equanimity was 
not disturbed thereby. Apropos of pie, it was his custom every 
Saturday at noon — the paper having been printed and mailed — 
to provide what was designated as a ' pie gorge,' to which 
we were freely invited. About a dozen good-sized pies, fresh 
from the famous pie bakery of Russel, in Spruce street, would 
grace the imposing stone. Ample justice was done to the 
delicious pastries, especially by the great editor himself, who, re- 
leased from the week's toil and anxiety, gave full rein to his natural 
flow of humor, and indulged in witticisms and anecdotes that were 
a feast for the soul, besides being a digestive assistant. . 

" Notwithstanding the financial difficulties that beset him while 
publishing the New Yorker, he never failed to pay his hands 
promptly every cent they had earned. He seemed to regard that 
obligation as a sacred one; and so, too, with regard to the same ob- 
ligations to the Tribune printers. He was truly the workingman's 
best friend in all that the term implies, as his newspaper fully evi- 
denced." 

These letters were received from Mr W. D. Howells, the author, 
and Mr H. M. Alden, editor of Harper's Magazine: 

Hamilton^ Bermuda, Jan. ij, igii 
Dear Mr McCabe: 

I should be glad and proud to come to No. 6's celebration of the 
Greeley centenary. But I am almost a hundred years old myself, 
by my personal almanac, which has been sent forward by two attacks 
of the grippe, and I can only join you in the cordial sense of unity 
which never ceases to bind printers together. Greeley was one of 
the best of us, and we ought to keep his memory green. 

Yours sincerely 

W. D. Howells 

Neiv York, January 26, igii 
Dear Mr McCabe: 

As I live in the country and am much enfeebled by recent illness, 
I am unable to accept the kind invitation of your committee to the 
meeting commemorating the centenary of Horace Greeley's birth. 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 121 

Along with Lincoln and old Ben Franklin, Horace Greeley ranks 
as a singular type, eminently original and individual, of the plain 
American ; and it is peculiarly fitting that this centenary of his birth 
should be celebrated under the auspices of Typographical Union 
No. 6, of which he was the first president. 

With hearty sympathy with your undertaking 

Yours faithfully 

H. M. Alden- 



THE DEDICATION OF THE MONU- 
MENT, FEBRUARY 3, 1914 



THE DEDICATION OF THE MONUMENT, 
FEBRUARY 3, 1914 

The statue itself, picturesquely located, overlooking the grounds 
which Greeley so dearly loved and on which he found rest and 
recreation in rustic, open-air employments and in farming, is the 
logical climax of the sentiments aroused by the centenary memorials 
held in Greeley's honor in many different parts of the country. 

Here we may well recall what Greeley said of his " house in the 
woods " as he affectionately called his Chappaqua home : '' I think 
we all as we grow old, love to feel and know that some spot of earth 
is peculiarly our own — ours to possess and to enjoy, ours to im- 
prove and to transmit to our children." 

Though the weather was unfavorable, the roads and fields were 
thronged with people intent to see the enduring memorial and to 
listen to the eulogies that were to form part of the ceremonies of 
the unveiling. So eager and interested was everybody in what was 
going on that no one seemed to care for the wind or the drizzling 
rain. 

The holiday spirit was in the air, and there was evident a feeling 
of satisfaction that Chappaqua village had at last a statue worthy 
of her hero and of the affection that was felt for him by the old 
friends who knew him and by the younger folks whom the tradi- 
tion of their elders had taught to love him. 

Benignant, beaming and thankful, in mien and feature very like 
her father, was Mrs Gabrielle Greeley Clendenin, the picture of 
joy, as she pulled the string that drew apart the banner of the 
Stars and Stripes, revealing the wonderful bronze figure upon its 
beautiful pedestal. The goal had been reached. The people felt 
that the labors of the memorial committee of the Chappaqua His- 
torical Society had been crowned with success. 

The well-arranged program for the unveiling of the statue was 
carried out under the careful supervision of President John I. D. 
Bristol, who neglected nothing to do justice to the occasion. 

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 

Rev. Otis Tift'any Barnes, Pastor of the First Congregational 
Church at Chappaqua, was the temporary chairman, and addressed 
an assemblage of some eight hundred people in the following words : 

We have assembled here this afternoon to honor the memory of 
a great and good man, Horace Greeley. At a considerable expendi- 

125 



126 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

tiire of time and labor and thought and money, a statue of this 
famous man has been erected, and we are at this time to witness its 
unveiling and its formal dedication with appropriate ceremonies. 

It is my privilege to welcome you to these exercises in the name 
of the Chappaqua Historical Society, a society founded to per- 
petuate records of great lives and noteworthy events connected with 
our community, " to summon up remembrance of things past " — 
lest we forget. W^e, the people of this community, are proud of 
the fact that the name of Chappaqua is inseparably joined with the 
name of this great, good man. We admire his wisdom, we reverence 
liis character, we cherish his high ideals and principles, we honor 
him for his influence in national affairs and for his associations in 
the life of this community. We are glad that strangers are met 
with us today — representatives of city. State and the i)ress. 

To one and all we extend a cordial, hearty welcome — to the 
members of his family, to those who knew and loved him, to his 
friends and associates and to all who have come out of interest or 
curiosity. We welcome you, and we would bid you remember, as 
we listen to the addresses which are to follow, that, in the words 
of the poet : 

When a great man dies, 

For years bej'ond our ken 
The light he leaves behind him, 

Lies upon the paths of men. 

There is light upon our paths today, and it shines from the life of 
Horace Greeley. 

The invocation will now be pronounced by the Rev. Dr Clendenin. 
ADDRESS AND INVOCATION 

REV. DR F. M. CLENDENIN 

For the little book I hold in my hand. I searched the land over 
for some twenty years but in vain, there being as far as I could 
learn but one copy left in the world. This copy T could secure with 
neither love nor money, but last year the owner of it — Mr William 
Erving — gave it to Mrs Clendenin with some very tender and 
affectionate words regarding her good father. 

It is a book which, humanly speaking, kept Horace Greeley in | 
New York, making it the center of his active life, for, when he was ' 
about to leave New York, discouraged because he could not find t 
employment there, he was given the work of setting the type of * 




DR AND MRS CLENDENIN AND DAUGHTER GABRIELLE 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I27 

this little New Testament, printed by John T. West & Company 
in 1832. How nearly he came to returning to some country print- 
ing office, his own words show : " I returned to my lodging on Sat- 
urday evening, thoroughly weary, disheartened and disgusted with 
New York, and resolved to shake its dust from my feet next Mon- 
day morning, while I could still leave with money in my pocket, 
and before its almshouse could foreclose upon me." From this book, 
which in so many ways deeply influenced his life, it would seem 
fitting that I read some words before the invocation which is to 
follow. 

(Dr Clendenin here read the Beatitudes from the fifth chapter of 
Saint Matthew; and offered the following prayer:) 

O God our Father, the fountain of all wisdom, the source of all 
strength, we, Thy children, desire to invoke on this and on all our 
work Thy Heavenly benediction. 

We thank Thee for the courage that has enabled Thy servants 
in every age to bear witness for truth and righteousness and to 
defend by word and deed the downtrodden and oppressed. 

Especially we thank Thee for the life and work of him whose 
image and memorial we here this day unveil. 

We thank Thee for his stainless and upright life, for his clear 
vision of duty, for his fearless loyalty to what he believed to be 
the truth, for his unflinching devotion to the cause of the slave and 
his undying hatred of all tyranny and of all injustice and wrong. 

We pray Thee, Almighty God, that, as this memorial shall stand 
here through the years to come, men may see in it the image of 
an honest and fearless life, and that discouraged hearts, as they 
pass by, may find new courage in this silent presence, and may 
see in it how neither poverty nor obscurity, loneliness nor misun- 
derstanding need dismay a man who strives for the best, in the 
fear of God, and with the gifts that God has given him. 

We thank Thee that in his life we may recall the example of 
one who truly loved his neighbor as himself and who also so regu- 
larly bowed head and heart in deep and reverent worship of Thee. 
Bless and prosper, we pray Thee, this place and village which for 
so many years gave rest to his l)ody, with cheer and comfort to 
his mind and heart. Guide and keep this land and nation he so 
truly loved. And grant that, having served Thee in our generation, 
we may await like him " with an awe that is not fear and with a 
consciousness of demerit which does not exclude hope, the opening 
of the gates of the Eternal World." We ask this and all else in the 
name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen. 



128 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Mr Barnes: It is most fitting, of course, that a member of Mr 
Greeley's family unveil the statue. This honor has been given to 
Mrs Clendenin, daughter of Mr Greeley, who will now unveil the 
statue. 

The statue was unveiled by Mrs Clendenin, amid the cheers of 
the assemblage. 

Mr Barnes: Most of us know, I suppose, that this statue was 
erected largely through the tireless labors of one man, who is now 
to address us, a man who in many ways has benefited our com- 
numity, a man who, becoming vitalized by the life of Horace Gree- 
ley, resolved that his statue should be erected here. We speak of 
Horace Greeley as the Grand Old Man of Chappaqua. I want to 
introduce to you a grand man, the Grand Young Man of Chappa- 
qua, one who, though advanced in years, yet with the passage of each 
year grows younger and brighter and more blooming — the Grand 
Young Man of Chappaqua — our genial friend and neighbor, Mr 
John L D. Bristol. 

PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS 

JOHN I. D. BRISTOL, PRESIDENT OF THE CHAPPAQUA HISTORICAL 

SOCIETY 

Crowding upon my mind, on this splendid occasion, are the epi- 
grammatic utterances of those great Americans whose names are 
so dear to us, whose achievements constitute so much of our history^ 
and whose lives afford such grand examples for all to emulate. i 

These ever-living expressions were born in periods when med 
rose to heights of grander manhood : in the early struggles fof 
national life; during the dark Revolutionary days when the fate 
of an infant nation hung in the balance of war and desolation ; when 
the stirring events of the War of 1812 were rapidly making history; 
during the mental strain of the Rebellion's exciting days; and in 
the later periods, when peace followed war — calming the fears and 
passions of men. 

These inspiring American utterances are our inherited legacies — 
the constellations that will ever gleam in the enduring skies of 
national memory. They are the utterances that created, fostered, 
sustained and perpetuated that American patriotism and mentality 
which must, in the end, evolve a long-continued era of progression 
that will ultimately prove the parent of a nobler humanity and es- 
tablish the universal brotherhood of man. 

J 




^_^^^ Albert E. Henschel Miss Ruth Eriich 

L '■■* John I. D. Bristol, president 

Edwm Bedell, secretary Miss Edith Dorothea Bedell 

PERSONS PROMINENT IN MONUMENT UNVEILING, CHAPPAQUA, 
FEBRUARY 3, I914 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I29 

In the Virginia House of Burgesses, in May 1765, a new member, 
a young American at the age of twenty-nine, introduced a resolution 
opposing the stamp act, and, in supporting his measure, said : " Cae- 
sar had his Brutus; Charles the First his Cromwell; and George 

the Third " (" Treason! " cried the speaker of the house, and 

from all parts of the assemblage the cry was echoed.) History 
relates that, " with a voice of thunder and the look of a god," the 

young orator continued, " may profit by their example! H this 

be treason, make the most of it ! " 

Were not these words of Patrick Henry the forerunners of a 
newly created mentality, which, ten years later, received with uni- 
versal acclaim his immortal utterance : " Give me liberty, or give 
me death ! " ? 

The foundation of all goodness and all greatness is the quickening 
intensity and the stimulated association of the mental faculties from 
which these higher and grander traits of character are derived. The 
firm and emphatic promulgation of the action of these faculties, 
through the medium of expression, has everything to do with the 
growth and cultivation of a like mentality in others. 

What political " grafter " or demagogue of today can read the 
reply of General Reed, of Revolutionary fame, when offered a 
tempting bribe, and not feel a sense of burning shame at his words : 
" I am poor, very poor, but your King is not rich enough to buy 
me!"? 

What American can ever be unpatriotic, in recalling that Nathan 
Hale, when he was about to be executed as a spy, said : " I only 
regret that I have but one life to lose for my country ! " ? 

What mind can fail to be inspired to a greater sense of right and 
goodness, by these words of President Garfield: "A noble life, 
crowned with heroic death, rises above and outlives the pride and 
pomp and glory of the mightiest empire of the earth " ? 

When perverted caution acts, and despair with depressing touch 
l)lights our hope, how cheering are the words of that naval wonder, 
John Paul Jones, who, when asked by the captain of the English 
ship, Serapis, if he had struck his colors, sent over the smoke-laden, 
wave-tossed ocean, this characteristic reply: " I have not yet begun 
to fight ! " 

Or, when oppressed with difficulties that o'erwhelm our personal- 
ity, how inspiring it is to recall the epigrammatic signal of General 
Sherman, wig-wagged from the heights of Kenesaw to the foe- 
surrounded General Corse at Allatoona : " Hold the fort ! / am 
coming! " 



130 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

As " Peace hath her victories no less renown'd than war," so 
are great utterances in peaceful times no less inspiring than when 
the land is rent with calls to arms, the parades of soldiers and the 
sorrowing for the dead and dying. How true it is, that the national 
conscience has been grandly stimulated by one of the most sublime 
utterances of men, that of Henry Clay, who said : " I would rather 
be right, than be President ! " 

So, too, Daniel Webster's " Liberty and Union, now and forever, 
one and inseparable ! " and Abraham Lincoln's " Government of the 
people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the 
earth " are words that have made history, for such utterances are 
the foundations upon which nations are built. 

When Washington, at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, in the 
modesty and worth of his character, said, amid the wild cheering 
of his troops, " Let posterity cheer for us," he left in these words 
an inspiration for all who strive to benefit humanity. 

American thought and mental progress, those great factors of 
human happiness, are closely associated with the many epigrammatic 
utterances with which the pages of our history abound. We can 
allude to but few of these — regretting the omission of so many 
with which the student of history is familiar and which have added 
to the lasting fame of Stark, Paine, Lawrence, Perry, Jackson, Cal- 
houn, Taylor, Toombs, IngersoU, and hundreds of other Americans 
on whom Time will bestow the chaplet of growing reverence. 

The utterances of these men are characteristic of their greatness. 
A sentence that lives through the ages, is but an expression of the 
mind that gave it birth. How more wonderful by far, the mentality 
whence the expression emanated ! 

The man whose earthly immortality we are seeking today to 
perpetuate by the unveiling of this magnificent monument, gave 
utterance to many great truths. From his twenty-fourth year, in 
1834, when the first number of the New Yorker was issued, down 
through the seven years subsequent to April loth of 1841, the birth- 
day of the New York Tribune, and especially in the columns of 
that widely known publication, the intellectual and moral supremacy 
of Horace Greeley was manifest in utterances that were peculiarly 
his own, and these utterances had much to do with the real progress 
that humanity has made. 

And, though an agitator of tremendous power, there breathed 
through the speeches and writings of Horace Greeley, the tones 
of moderation and of candor, and aliove all, the rare spirit of a 
gentle humanity. He was a master of the language of the higher 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I3I 

faculties of men. Gifted as he was, with a supreme knowledge of 
human nature, he knew that, normally, reason does not storm, con- 
scientiousness parade in the grotesque dress of bluster, nor benevo- 
lence advertise its good deeds. 

With what a feeling of admiration and wonder do we contem- 
plate today, the wide and varied range of the utterances of this 
one man ! His opposition to human slavery, his liberal religious con- 
victions, his strong advocacy of temperance, his all-powerful argu- 
ments in favor of the protection of American industries, his fre- 
quently expressed opinions on the practical affairs of life, including 
marriage and divorce, the constant calls upon him for addresses at 
agricultural fairs, and the discussions of the great questions of the 
day upon the lecture platform — all gave him opportunities such as 
fell to the lot of no other American, to give utterance to views and 
suggestions befitting these great occasions. And can any one at 
this day doubt that the wide popularity of Horace Greeley arose 
from the able manner in which he satisfied the growing intelligence 
of his large and numerous audiences? 

One of the most famous of his utterances — a sentence of but six 
words — sent, it is estimated, over two million of the younger and 
brighter men of the East into the western states. After securing 
their fortunes and competencies there, many of them returned to 
their eastern homes and became leaders in finance, science, educa- 
tion, and reformatory measures. And all were thankful to our 
great adviser for having said, " Go west, young man, go west ! " 

As the mind of Horace Greeley was chiefly manifested through 
its higher faculties, his talents were, naturally, associated with the 
great economic reforms of the day. Had he lived in our time, we 
feel that he would have been chiefly noted in two directions — the 
radical reformation of our currency system, and as an advocate of 
universal peace. Had Greeley and Webster been of our generation, 
the great Massachusetts Senator, echoing the praise he gave to Alex- 
ander Hamilton, might well have said of our Chappaqua reformer: 
" He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams 
of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of the public 
credit, and it sprang upon its feet." 

Certainly, Horace Greeley could not have rested under the pres- 
ent growing financial plight of our own and other countries, arising 
from the lessening gold value year by year being held as uniform 
and unchanging, with the result that all necessities of life must rise 
in the scale of price to meet a wholly fictitious standard. 

General Grant, in his letter of May 29, 1868, accepting the nomi- 



132 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

nation to the presidency, placed upon the enduring records this 
sublime utterance : " Let us have peace ! " Had Horace Greeley 
lived in our day, the question of universal peace with him would not 
have been a minor one, to be restricted to the dissemination of peace 
literature, after-dinner speeches, or as a factor in the education of 
school children. 

In place of all of this, our great reformer would have advocated 
some such measure as the sending of a national committee of ten 
or twenty eminent Americans to the Court of St James, with con- 
vincing peace arguments, and looking to the addition to that com- 
mittee of the same number of prominent Englishmen, for a like 
visit to the War Lord of Germany. Then, with the addition of the 
same number of leading Germans, the committee would have pro- 
ceeded to Paris ; and so on, in a round of visits to all the great cap- 
itals and rulers of the world, carrying with it the unanswerable argu- 
ments of peace, with the ultimate result that a universal treaty 
among all intelligent and progressive nations would have been en- 
tered into,. and war and its ravages be no more. 

When we consider that the war expenditure of the United States 
during the last fiscal year — a period of peace — amounted to the 
enormous sum of $470,063,369, while the salaries of all teachers 
in the public schools of the country in 191 1 — the latest available 
data — were but $266,678,471; that the cost of one of our great 
battleships exceeds that of any one of several of our most prominent 
colleges; that the cost of firing a single one of the great guns of 
these floating fortresses of steel would maintain a college student 
for ten months; and that, under the militia law of January 21, 1903, 
as amended by the act of May 27, 1908, over sixteen million of our 
citizens are subject to military duty — ^ should we not be appalled at 
these indications of the primitive and undeveloped mental condition 
of our legislators responsible for these barriers upon the road of 
progress ? 

Were but a small proportion of this enormous expenditure ap- 
plied to the perpetuation of the name and fame of our great scient- 
ists, educators and reformers, by means of statues in the public 
squares of our cities and the playgrounds of our schools, a grander 
mentality of American character would be apparent in but a few 
generations to come. 

To what other economic uses the enormous war expenditures of 
the United States could be devoted, if all of the nations of the world 
were to be converted to lasting peace ! It would revolutionize our 
roads, our harbors, our public buildings and our libraries; house 



I 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I33 

all of our insane in homes of mental recovery ; employ all of our 
Edisons, Marconis and Burbanks, for a lifetime of public education; 
and establish free colleges and seats of learning in every state of 
our Union. 

The Chappaqua Historical Society has had no governmental aid 
in the erection' of this splendid depiction of greatness. It is the 
result of the love and reverence borne by nearly two hundred people 
for the memory of him who was philosopher, reformer, and Ameri- 
ca's greatest editor — him whom the gentle Whittier called " Our 
later Franklin." Comprised in the list of contributors to this work, 
are the millionaire and the man of limited means, the teacher and 
the scholar, the citizen of foreign birth and American-born, the man 
and the woman; and this great committee of representative Ameri- 
cans, on this, the one hundred and third anniversary of the birth of 
him who knew no fear when Right stood by his side, is consecrating 
this splendid example of the sculptor's art to Chappaqua, to beau- 
tiful Westchester county, to the country and to the future of our 
land. 

Who can imagine or dream of the wonders that will evolve during 
the years that this statue is to endure? Our country's growth, its 
prosperity, the discoveries and inventions in all the material things 
that will so greatly enhance the happiness of its people, its develop- 
ments in education, art and economics, the newer and more just 
treatment of the criminal and the insane, the adjustment of the 
many vexed questions of capital and labor, and the evolvement of a 
new political economy and a greater statesmanship — all of which 
were favorite and constant topics of thought and discussion with 
Horace Greeley. 

May this statue recall and aid to perpetuate for future genera- 
tions, the intellectual power, the goodness, the kindness, the great- 
ness and the marvel of intuitive perception that knew and felt the 
wants of the people in all walks of life, possessed by the man of 
whom Bayard Taylor has said : " There were three things which 
he could never learn : to mistrust human nature, to refuse help when- 
ever he could give it, and to disguise his honest opinions." 

This generation is wiser and better in that Horace Greeley was 
so commanding a figure in the generation that preceded it. What 
a lesson for the future of the race ! One great man of one genera- 
tion, making millions better in the generation that follows ! How 
powerful a factor in evolving all that is great and good within us, 
arises from the emulation of the character of those rare children 
of Nature, about whose brows are entwined the wreaths of goodness 



134 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

and intellectual power! They are the moulders of the mental des- 
tiny of the race! They are the men whose portraits; in the grandeur 
of art, should adorn the walls of our schoolhouses ! They are the 
men whose statues, in ever enduring bronze, should grace the parks 
of our land ! They are the men of whom poets will write, as Ed- 
mund Clarence Stedman has written of Horace Greeley: 

He lives whei-ever men to men 

In perilous hours his words repeat, 
Where clangs the forge, where glides the pen, 

Where toil and traffic crowd the street ; 
And in whatever time or place 

Earth's purest souls their purpose strengthen, 
Down the broad pathway of our race 

The shadow of his name shall lengthen. 

At this point, Mr Bristol assumed the chairmanship of the 
meeting. 

President Bristol: In introducing to you our next speaker, it 
seems fitting to say that, wherever the pathway of civilization leads 
and in all lands where refinement has had its birth, the surest sign of 
a truly evolved manhood is a respect and reverence for woman. 

Horace Greeley, very early in his life, strongly evinced this splen- 
did trait of character. It is well, therefore, that a woman should 
address us. 

A great pleasure is now afforded our committee, in making you 
acquainted with Miss Edith Dorothea Bedell. 

HORACE GREELEY AND WOMAN SUFFRAGE 

EDITH DOROTHEA BEDELL 

I have been asked to say a few words today, because, as captain 
of this district of the New York Suffrage Association, I represent 
the cause which Mr Greeley at one time advocated — the cause of 
woman suffrage. 

Woman suffrage is no longer an experiment, as it was in Mr 
Greeley's time. It has existed in many countries for years; and its 
success is shown by the fact that it is slowly but surely spreading 
over the whole world. Women are now voting in Australia, New 
Zealand, Finland and Norway ; and in our own country in the states 
of Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Arizona, Colorado, 
Wyoming, Utah, Kansas, Illinois and in Alaska. In Wyoming, 
where women have had the franchise since 1869, suffragists for the 
last twenty years have had a standing challenge to their opponents 




Perry Brevoort Turner Marsden G. Scott 

wir rr ^ Richard E. Day Litt.D. 

WiUiam Henry Deacy Jacob Erlich 

SPEAKERS AT MONUMENT DEDICATION 

Chappaqua, February 3, 191 4 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I35 

to find, in all Wyoming, two respectable men who will assert over 
their own signatures that woman sufifrage has had any bad effect 
whatever. So far there has not been a single response. 

To me. many of whose ancestors fought in the Colonial Wars, 
in the War of the Revolution, in the War of 1812, whose great- 
great grandmother, a friend of Jenny McCrea, was one of the young 
girls who strewed flowers in the path of General Washington on his 
way to take command of the Continental army, with all the tradi- 
tions that this involves, it is humiliating to be obliged to ask men 
of an alien race, as I have done in this town, if they will consent 
to give me the vote in 191 5. And yet we women have to ask them 
in order to obtain it. Our men have thoughtlessly placed us in that 
position. 

After the Civil War Mr Greeley asserted that women were more 
fit to cope with civic problems than men who had been away from 
home for several years, fighting. He has been accused of leaving the 
suffragists in the lurch when it came to the final test. But, whether 
he did or not, as he believed in woman suffrage, I hope that his 
statue here will be a constant reminder to the men of Chappaqua 
that they themselves will be obliged to help decide our fate — the 
fate of New York — in 1915. 

President Bristol : After hearing Miss Bedell, the conclusion 
seems irresistible that the girls in our school today, as well as the 
boys, will hold the suffrage destiny of our country in their hands 
in but a few years. 

We should, therefore, call upon one of our school children to 
speak of the usefulness this monument will have in molding their 
future. 

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Master Perry Brevoort Turner. 

ACKNOWLEDGMENT ON BEHALF OF THE SCHOOL 
CHILDREN OF CHAPPAQUA 

PERRY BREVOORT TURNER ( EIGHT YEARS OLD) 

On behalf of the school children of Chappaqua, and in their 
name, I have been delegated to express our thanks to the Chappaqua 
Flistorical Society for this beautiful statue of Horace Greeley. 

It will always be an inspiration to us ; and, when we look upon it, 
we shall be reminded how a poor, struggling boy was not only able 
to educate himself, under the most trying difficulties, but became one 
of the foremost men of his time. 



136 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

President Bristol : One of the great workers in the cause of the 
creation of a proper memorial to Horace Greeley was Mr Jacob 
Erlich, the treasurer of the Chappaqua Historical Society, and of 
its Horace Greeley memorial committee. 

Without Mr Erlich's efforts, we doubt that the statue would now 
have graced this site. Our unveiling committee greatly regret that 
Mr Erlich is confined to his home by illness. We all know how 
much he regrets his utter inability to be with us. 

His daughter. Miss Ruth Erlich, has kindly consented to read 
what her father would have said to us, and we now take great 
pleasure in presenting Miss Erlich. 

ADDRESS OF JACOB ERLICH 

(Read by Ruth Erlich) 

Greeley's life is one about which every American should know 
something. The centennial of his birth was celebrated in many 
parts of the country, and particularly in this place where he had 
built his homestead and lived to the end of his days. 

From the devotion and tribute that had their chief stimulus in 
the painstaking efforts of the Chappaqua Historical Society this 
statue has grown. 

In my connection as treasurer of the Greeley memorial committee. 
I had abundant occasion to realize how firmly rooted were the re- 
spect and aft'ection of all people who knew him personally or felt 
the direct influence of his fruitful public labors. It may not be 
amiss at this point to say a few words of thanks to the members 
of the society and people from all parts of the Union whose con- 
tributions made up the fund for this statue. But, while these finan- 
cial aids were useful and necessary, we can not overestimate the 
genius of the sculptor who presents to posterity a lifelike image of 
the man whom we all delight to honor. 

During the celebration of Greeley's centennial, three years ago, 
I had occasion to make reference to the most important events of 
Greeley's career. It will therefore be unnecessary to retravel the 
same ground. Let me, however, call attention to some things inter- 
esting to review. 

Greeley was consulted by Cyrus W. Field concerning the Atlantic 
cable. As president of the American Institute he did much for 
agriculture. He was especially interested in the sewing machine, 
and was the first to mention moving platforms. Through the tre- 
mendous influence wielded by his pen, in the New York Tribune, 




JACOB ERLICH 

To whom is due much of the credit for the Greeley centenary 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 1 37 

of which he was the founder, he naturally and logically became one 
of the founders of the Republican party. His opposition to Seward, 
by the whirligig of politics, resulted in the nomination of Lincoln 
by the newly formed Republican party, and thus the position he 
took made a most profound chapter in the annals of our country. 

He not only brought about the nomination and election of Lincoln 
but hastened the issue of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation by 
his passionate appeal in the Tribune, entitled " The Prayer of 
Twenty Millions." 

The labors of the Greeley memorial committee are approaching 
their close only in so far as the work connected with the monument 
is concerned. 

The study of so grand and noble a life has elevated our civic 
ideals and broadened our sense of the humanities. This monument 
means the opening up of new ways to honor the character that it 
represents and thus will be fulfilling the high mission for which it 
is intended. 

President Bristol : In the darkest hour of money-raising toward 
completing the greatest work of the Chappaqua Historical Society, 
\lr Albert Edward Henschel proposed the introduction of a bill 
in the Legislature of the State of New York, appropriating $10,000 
to enable our society to complete this memorial undertaking. The 
bill unanimously passed both houses, but was vetoed by Governor 
Dix. 

Prompt efforts for financial aid were made in other directions, 
but were productive of slow results. This arose from the natural 
order of things, chief of which is the lack of reverence for art works 
of this character in this great country of ours. Some hundreds of 
dollars are still needed, to complete the tablet and other details. 
^^'e shall, no doubt, raise this money. 

We are also indebted to Mr Henschel for securing the passage 
and approval by Governor Sulzer, of the $1500 appropriation bill 
for making a permanent record of this day's proceedings. 

You should all know Mr Henschel, and I now take great pleasure 
in introducing him to you. 

ADDRESS OF ALBERT E. HENSCHEL 

There is probably no man, other than Franklin, whose activities 
have more deeply penetrated the well-springs of American life 
than Horace Greeley. His name is brought before us whenever 



138 THE UNIVKRSITV OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

we dig at the bottom of the great things that make up American 
progress and civiHzation today. This has made Greeley's name a 
household word. 

He was tirst and always an American. The next great charac- 
teristic I wish to bring out is his superb moral courage. To instance 
one illustration of many, let me carry you back to the year 1846, 
when prejudice and narrow-mindedness were more rife than today. 
He had the sublime fearlessness to defend the memory of the much 
calumniated Thomas Paine, in the discussion with Henry J. Ray- 
mond, on the subject of " association." These are Greeley's words: 
"As to poor Tom Paine, ... I am unable to account for the bit- 
terness of vituperation with which you assail him. That to him, 
more than to any other man, this country is indebted for the impulse 
to its independence from Great Britain — that its separation from the 
Mother Country was more ably and cogently advocated and justified 
by him than by any other writer — that his voice cheered the dis- 
comfited defenders of our liberties, as they tracked with blood the 
frozen soil of New Jersey on their retreat before the overwhelming 
numbers of the enemy in the winter of 1776. and reanimated the 
people to make the efiforts and sacrifices necessary to secure our 
freedom — I confess, seem to me to entitle him to some measure 
of kindly regard at the hands of every American citizen." 

It was the same kind of moral courage that made him defy the 
public passion of the hour in signing the bail bond of Jefferson 
Davis, after having defied the powerful hosts of slavery in the 
North as well as in the South for years until his life battle was 
crowned in the triumph of freedom over slavery. 

He always had a word of hope and cheer for the downtrodden, 
and worked out practical means for the extension of social justice. 
He never failed to take part in any movement for the general good. 
At the great mass meeting of the New York Early-closing Asso- 
ciation in 1864, he said: "It is not the effort of one class to 
injure or pull down another, but an effort to benefit both classes 
by simply limiting the hours of labor." 

When Greeley died, the people realized that they had lost a true 
friend. How he felt with and for the people, is well shown in 
one of his letters, written in 1854: "I am ready to follow any 
lead that promises to hasten the day of northern emancipation. . . . 
But, remember that editors can only follow where the people's 
heart is already prepared to go with them. They can direct and 
animate a healthy public indignation, but not " create a soul beneath 
the ribs of death.' " 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I39 

In a speech delivered at Jeffersonville, Ind., about two months 
before he died, he spoke of his humble life as a farmer, a mechanic, 
a printer and told how he devoted the rest of his life to the vocation 
of printer and editor. He spoke of his sympathies " with the 
immense majority of mankind who in all ages are required to 
subsist by their own manual industry." He then proceeds : " I 
was, in the days of slavery, an enemy of slavery, because I thought 
slavery inconsistent with the rights, dignity and highest well-being 
of labor. ... I was anxious next that our country's unity 
might be preserved, without bloodshed if that were possible — by 
means of bloodshed, if that dire necessity should be fastened upon 
us. For, friends and neighbors, bloodshed is always a sad neces- 
sity — always a woeful necessity — and he who loves his fellow 
man must desire to make it as short as possible, so soon as peace 
can be restored, to efface as speedily as may be every trace not 
merely of blood on the earth, but of vengeful feelings from the 
hearts of his fellows. Such has been the impulse of the course 1 
have pursued throughout the last few eventful years. My lift 
has been an open book ; all could read it. My thoughts have beeri 
given to the public warm and fresh." 

Thus we have from his own lips a portraiture of his lite 
purposes. 

The sincerity of these purposes, the untiring, sleepless zeal to 
bring to reality his beautiful ideals of human brotherhood and 
freedom, his absolute fearlessness in the prosecution of what he 
believed to be the right, his uncompromising warfare upon the 
frauds and hypocrisies of the age, his labors for the advancement 
and education of the masses, his instinctive sympathy for every 
member of the human race, give us a picture of a high and mighty 
soul, fit to take rank with the best and noblest lives that have 
adorned the earth. Justly may we apply to him the words he used 
in speaking of another, that he was " faithful in heart and purposes 
to Justice, to Freedom, and the inalienable Rights of Man." 

President Bristol : We all regret the unavoidable absence by 
illness, of Mr William Ordway Partridge, through whose genius 
this remarkable likeness of Horace Greeley is preserved to us in 
the standard bronze of the country. 

Mr Partridge has requested me to present his respects and regards 
to you, and to state how deeply he regrets not being present on this 
occasion. 

We all feel that Mr Partridge would have experienced a supreme 



140 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

pleasure at the moment of the imveiHng of one of his most success- 
ful works. We also know that he has accomplished the difficult 
task given to him, with artistic fidelity. 

It is not generally known that a recent legislative enactment 
empowers the expenditure of $1500 by the State of New York, 
for recording the unveiling exercises of today in a proper and lasting 
form, for official distribution. 

The State Historian, Hon. James A. Holden, not being able to 
be with us on this occasion, is well represented by Dr Richard E. 
Day, chief clerk of that office. Our committee has invited Doctor 
Day to address you, and it now affords me great pleasure to intro- 
duce him. 

HORACE GREELEY, THE JOURNALIST 

RICHARD E. DAY, DIVISION OF HISTORY, THE UNIVERSITY OF THE 
STATE OF NEW YORK 

The State work with which I am associated has been devoted 
largely to the deeds of soldiers. The occasion which brings us 
together here concerns the fame of one whose victories were emi- 
nently peaceful. Statesmen and lawmakers, after military heroes, 
have filled the amplest place and won the readiest honors; but 
Horace Greeley's distinctive achievement did not place him with 
these. The entire period of his office-holding was brief. Had he 
been elected to the presidency in 1872, his administration would 
have been marked by those high virtues of independence and 
integrity which stamped his whole history; but whether it would 
have been a political success, in view of the advanced character 
of the policies to which he stood committed — whether he did not 
stand too far in advance of the nation to be able to lead it by his 
own enthusiasm, is a speculative question, which I need not try to 
answer. It is quite as certain that Mr Greeley was not a politician 
according to the uses of the term which prevail at the present time. 
How little he enjoyed political domination or cooperation, he showed 
when he announced the dissolution of the firm of Seward, Weed 
and Greeley by the withdrawal of the junior member. No, with 
highest honor to politicians of the better sort. I can not think that 
Greeley was great as a politician. So, if we discard from con- 
sideration some other features of his manifold activity, we have 
the newspaper man — one of the most noteworthy that our country 
has produced. 

In the short time at my disposal I will not undertake to compare 




WILLIAM ORDWAY PARTRIDGE 

Sculptor of the Greeley memorial statue at Chappaqua 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I4I 

the founder of the Tribune with other great journaHsts who are 
numbered among his predecessors, contemporaries or successors ; 
but no other has filled so completely the era in which he lived, 
molded its opinion and action so potently, stirred its emotions so 
deeply, and represented national aspirations so triumphantly. It 
was, as we all know, an era of personal journalism. The day of 
the dueling editor had about passed ; the day of the horsewhipping 
editor had come. I have never read or heard that Mr Greeley ever 
whipped anyone. But he played his part in the personal discus- 
sions which distinguished the passionate politics of his time, and 
frequently defined his position toward an opponent with striking 
vehemence and that perspicuity of phrase in which he never had a 
master. It would be a delight to one whose boyhood was nourished 
on Greeley's Tribune to dilate on the excellences of that manly 
style, so trenchant, so compact, so free from artificial ornament, 
so decisive in its deadly swing. We have a school of journalism 
in the city where Horace Greeley did his work ; we are to have 
many in America, I hope. And in these "schools, I trust, the most 
famous of his editorials will often be exhibited to budding journal- 
ists, not only as illustrations of a remarkable era in journalism and 
politics, but as models of newspaper English. 

Yet few writings are kept alive very long by qualities of style 
alone ; and that which is vital in Greeley's productions is the quality 
of character. Few editors, however versatile, can long sustain the 
drain of a daily fresh appeal to their readers unless they carry to 
their desks at night or morning an earnestness that propels them 
over discouragement and weariness, and an enthusiasm which makes 
the old world new each day. By honesty of heart and clearness of 
mind he sometimes outstripped the thought of the public which he 
had created, and outran the slow-moving sentiment of the nation. 
This he did in his efforts to hasten the reconciliation of North and 
South. When he signed the bail bond of Jefferson Davis — an act 
as enlightened and far-seeing as it was courageous — his conduct 
corresponded with the principles which shaped his course as a 
public guide and teacher. Among the men of his generation were 
some who could interpret popular sentiment, and calculate its motion 
better than he. Abraham Lincoln possessed that intuitive gift. 
Horace Greeley's genius was that of the political seer, who antici- 
pates the sentiment of tomorrow. This made him the prophet of 
national reconciliation; and this I am inclined to regard as his 
crowning glory. As the memories of the Civil War are translated 
into the common traditions of the American people, and national 



142 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

pride learns to embrace all that belongs to American valor and 
steadfastness, the fame of the northern abolition editor who broke 
with a radical school of political thought, and became the herald of 
a real peace, will be exalted more and more. 

At the time of Greeley's death, he was described as our second 
Franklin ; and the likeness has impressed more than one mind. It 
was suggested by romantic features of the early careers of the two 
eminent printers, and enforced by a certain kinship of intellectual 
cast. Their interest in the practical side of life, their attachment to 
a philosophy which emphasizes the humbler virtues, and perhaps 
their command of the resources of idiomatic expression contribute 
to the resemblance. But we must be careful lest we press this 
likeness too far. The cool, suave art of the American who repre- 
sented the province of Pennsylvania in England, and the United 
States at the court of France, was foreign to Greeley's talent and 
temper. For diplomacy he seemed little fitted. It sometimes ap- 
peared to be his business to create difficulties rather than to smooth 
them away. This is the destiny of men whose perception of the 
moral character of issues is keen and prompt. 

It is undoubtedly true, as is asserted, that journalism of the 
Greeley type is passing, and with it the rule of overmastering 
personality. The new journalism means the organized cooperation 
of many trained workers, directed not to the expression of one 
person's thought, but to the interpretation of all the thoughts that 
agitate society. Whether the labor of the newspaper man will gain 
or lose inspiration by the change, is a matter too complex to examine 
here. Inspiring it has been in the past; and inspiring it will always 
be while the moral element persists in the forces which move 
humanity. 

President Bristol : To Mr William Henry Deacy we are under 
many obligations, as the architect of the beautiful pedestal of 
Pompton pink granite upon which this statue is placed. 

We have heeded Mr Deacy's advice, and his work manifests his 
splendid ability. Mr Deacy's absence, through illness, is regretted, 
but you have his regards and good wishes. The existence of the 
pedestal, as designed by himi, silently bespeaks its praise. 

The name of Horace Greeley has ever been closely associated 
with printers, and printers with type. It is proper, therefore, that 
we hear from Mr Marsden G. Scott, president of Typographical 
Union No. 6. Mr Greeley was long a member of this union, and 
its first president. 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I43 

HORACE GREELEY AND THE PRINTERS 

MARSDEN G. SCOTT, PRESIDENT OF TYPOGRAPHICAL UNION NO. 6 

It is my privilege to bring to these ceremonies the modest tribute 
of New York Typographical Union No. 6. More than threescore, 
years ago the man to whose memory this beautiful monument is 
unveiled today, advocated the formation of a union of the men 
employed in the printing offices of New York City. Such a union 
was formed in 1850, and during the first year of its existence 
Horace Greeley served as its presiding officer. 

Greeley had worked as a journeyman printer, setting type for 
low wages and working long hours. When he rose to distinction 
as a journalist, he did not desert the men who had been his asso- 
ciates in the composing rooms. Greeley held that the basis of all 
moral and social reform lay in a practical recognition of the right 
of every human being to demand of the community an opportunity 
to labor and to receive decent subsistence as the just reward of 
such labor. As an employer Greeley paid the highest prices to his 
printers and as an employer he urged the struggling printers to 
unite to improve conditions in their trade. 

" I joined the union," said Horace Greeley in 1850, " in the hope 
that something good would come of it. I expect good from it. 
But I recommend no strike, no hasty attempt at coercive measures. 
I would suggest a committee of the coolest heads among the journey- 
men to confer with employers and agree upon a scale of prices. 
It is by a union of all, or at least a majority among the journeymen, 
that this object can be achieved. Let them be as one man, united 
and determined to stay united, and all fair and honorable concessions 
will come, without strikes or vain parades or noisy vaporings. 
Remember, in union — and in union alone — there is strength." 

In the columns of the Tribune in September 1850, Mr Greeley 
said : " There ought obviously to be some uniform standard or 
scale to be appealed to in case of difference as to the proper com- 
pensation for any work done. Anarchy, uncertainty and chaos on 
this subject are all against the fair, regular, live-and-let-live em- 
ployer who wants good work done by good workmen and is willing 
to pay for it ; and benefit only the niggard who calculates to enrich 
himself by grinding the face of the poor and robbing labor of its 
honest due." 

Times change and men change with them, but upon the principles 
which Horace Greeley advocated more than sixty years ago there 
has been erected a trade union which we are confident would have 
the enthusiastic approval of Horace Greeley were he alive today. 



144 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Horace Greeley was one of cnir first leaders to urge a system of 
industrial peace in the printing industry. He was an earnest ad- 
vocate of conference, negotiation, conciliation and arbitration 
between employers and employees. These principles are the prin- 
ciples advocated by the men in the forefront of trade unions today. 
They are principles which have stood the test. They have produced 
satisfactory results. Their worth has been demonstrated, and we 
shall not cast them aside. 

Half a hundred journeymen printers elected Horace Greeley to 
the presidency of Typographical Union No. 6. Today we have a 
membership of more than seven thousand and our International 
Union has a membership of more than seventy thousand. Through 
our International Union we have establislied a home for aged and 
infirm members at Colorado Springs, to the support of which our 
union contributes as its share $12,000 annually. 

We have established an old age pension system, through which 
more than two hundred members of No. 6 received $48,500 in 
pensions last year. We have established a mortuary insurance 
fund, through which the relatives of deceased members of No. 6 
received $40,500 last year. The payments from these two funds, 
throughout the jurisdiction of our International Union, amount 
approximately to half a million dollars a year. 

Our International Union has established a course of instruction 
for apprentices and journeymen, and we in New York are con- 
tributing to the support of a school where two hundred apprentices 
are receiving instruction in printing. 

Aside from our beneficial features, we are interested in a cam- 
paign for more sanitary conditions in workshops, that the ravages 
of the white plague may be further checked and the health of our 
members be more fully protected. 

We have established a national arbitration system for the adjust- 
ment of disputes and the readjustment of wage scales with the 
American Newspaper Publishers' Association, and we hope in the 
near future to establish a similar system in the book and job 
printing industry. When this is done we shall feel that we have 
completed a system for negotiating with employers based on the 
simple recommendations made by Horace Greeley in 1850. 

The name of Horace Greeley has its place in our country's 
history as the nation's greatest editor. He was an intellectual giant, 
who molded public opinion. He was fearless in his advocacy of 
the rights of labor. He was unswerving in his loyalty to the govern 
nient under which we live. 



i 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I45 

We of the Typographical Union have a deep affection for the 
memory of this great man. We feel that in a measure he belonged 
to us. He was our first great leader. His wise counsel led to the 
organization of our union and, through following his wise counsel 
given 64 years ago, we hope ta establish industrial peace in the 
printing establishments of New York City and throughout the 
jurisdiction of the International Typographical Union of North 
America. 

President Bristol : Before the unveiling events of this day shall 
have wholly passed into the record, it seems best to give a brief 
summary of the work of the Horace Greeley memorial committee, 
acting under the auspices of the Chappaqua Historical Society. 

First, there was the selection of the monument site. Several 
Chappaqua localities were considered, with the result that ground 
was broken on this historic spot, memorable with events of the 
Revolution, three years ago today- — the centenary of the birth of 
Horace Greeley. 

The site of the statue was finally left to the decision of Mrs 
F. M. Clendenin, the daughter of the great editor. 

In August of the following year, the statue was delivered in 
Chappaqua. By this time all funds were entirely exhausted. Fur- 
ther work ceased for some months, when additional funds were 
obtained. 

The plans for the pedestal were then prepared. The subcom- 
mittee having this work in charge visited several of the great statues 
and monuments, and decided that no other stone than the famous 
Pompton pink granite would wholly comport wath all of the statue's 
requirements. This was especially true as to the greatly needed 
enduring qualities. 

A contract was finally entered into with a granite company, and 
a partial payment made. This company failed, with an uncompleted 
pedestal upon its hands. A long delay ensued, pending the selection 
of a second contracting company. With the pedestal under way, 
the entire working plant of this company was destroyed by fire. 

Another long period of discouraging work lay before the memorial 
committee, but this we must say was well performed, with the 
significant result that the contracting company finally completed 
the beautiful pedestal which we see before us. 

Following this, the entire plant of the contracting company was 
shut down, with contracts covering thousands of cubic yards of 
stone unfilled, owing, we understand, to labor troubles. The pedestal 



146 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

— the only work ever comi)letecl by this company — was placed in 
position in January of this year, the Chappaqua Historical Society 
taking charge of it on the 17th of last month, and we are unveiling 
it today. 

In the interim between the delivery of the statue and the placing 
of it upon its pedestal, it was carefully guarded, in a substantial and 
l)roper covering, in the open air, thus avoiding all risk from fire 
and the cost of insurance. 

In concluding the ceremonies of today, the Chappaqua Historical 
Society desires to thank this large and attentive audience for their 
cheering presence, and to extend hearty wishes for peace, happiness 
and prosperity to all. 

The following letter was received by the president of the Chap- 
paqua Historical Society a few days after the ceremonies. 

The Rectory 

Westchester 

New York City 

MY DEAR MR BRISTOL: 

Now that the first storm is beating upon that splendid statue of 
my father, I want to tell you how happy you have made his 
daughter. I just love that statue, and where it stands is so well 
chosen. Thank you and each one of that faithful committee, and 
from that cloud of the great departed may he thank you by being 
an inspiration of this generation, so that our children may be simple 
and true and brave and honest Americans. 

Faithfully and gratefully yours, 

Gabrielle Greeley Clendenin 
Feb. 6th, 1^14 




REV. AND MRS FRANK M. CLENDENIN (GABRIELLE GREELEY) 



ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS OF 
HORACE GREELEY 



ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS OF HORACE 
GREELEY 

The New York State Library has come into the possession of 
several letters of Horace Greeley, which the editor of this work 
has had reproduced for the purpose of showing the peculiar hand- 
writing of Mr Greeley, which for years has stood as the example 
par excellence of illegibility and peculiarity. All sorts of anecdotes 
and jests have been built around his handwriting. With a little 
care, however, his manuscripts can be read, as, while the letters 
are wonderful in construction, there is a uniformity about them 
which enables one, even though not an expert, to decipher them. 

The second reason for inserting them in this work is to show 
the wide range of interests in which Mr Greeley was involved. 
The letters to William E. Robinson came at a time in our history 
when certain great matters were in the making, and Greeley's in- 
structions to him to look after legislation at Washington convey a 
certain illuminating characterization, which shows conditions as 
they were at that time. His letter to the young lady regarding the 
borrowing of money is characteristic, especially in view of the fact 
that Horace (jreeley was invariably an easy victim for every derelict 
printer and professional panhandler in the country. His offer to 
loan money to a friend without the latter's asking for it, is decidedly 
indicative of his mental attitude toward money. 

The third reason for publishing these letters is on account of 
their historical value and for their preservation in a medium where 
they may be accessible to any one interested in Horace Greeley and 
his idiosyncrasies. The letters have been given in their chrono- 
logical order, with such annotations as will make the meaning clear 
to the understanding of the reader. 

Nezv York, March 2^, 1845 
Gentlemen 

Yours of the 21st has reached me barely in season to be answered 
before your Festival — not in season to allow me to unite with you 
in its celebration, even though my engagements did not forbid it. 

I profoundly regret my inability to comply with your kind invita- 
tion. Knowing well many who will be with you on this occasion, 
and cherishing a grateful regard for the Sons of Old Ireland who 
reside in and near Albany, and especially for their patient and 
generous efforts to enlighten the American People as to the justice 
and necessity of Repeal, I should have derived great pleasure from 
an evening's Social intercourse with them. Allow me to cherish 

149 



150 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

the hope that an opportunity may yet be mine, and meantime to 
propose to you the following sentiment : 

The Right of the Irish People and of every People, to control 
their oziii Domestic Legislation — In defiance of Power, and Pride, 
and Bayonets, and Falsehood, it shall yet be nobly triumphant. 

Yours, most truly 

Horace Greeley 

Messrs. William Cooney Committee of Invitation 

Nciv York, March 21, 1846 
Friend Robinson : ^ 

I think your letters are better since you were expelled from the 
House — if you should ever contrive to get expelled from the 
Senate also, I am confident they will be No. i. You write fuller. 
freer and more to the purpose. Nothing like stirring a man up 
now and then. 

Your invitation to the Supper on St Patrick's Day came too late, 
owing to a failure of the Mail. I met Robert Tyler at the Young 
Friends of Ireland's Dinner. Rev. Mr Burke made the best speech. 

Try to send me bills introduced or reported when you can. They 
are always useful. Corwin - has promised to present and move the 
printing of the Land Reformer's Memorial. He says he will do so 
as soon as the Oregon ■'' question is decide;!. l)Ut lie may on Monday. 
Whenever he does, be sure to report him fully. 

We paid the $25 note when presented. I l^elieve there is not 
much due you now. but you can draw a little ahead if you need it. 
We have spent all otir change on expresses, but never mind. W'e 
mean to make more some time. 

Yours, truly, 

Horace Greeley 



^ William Eripena Robinson was liorn in Ireland in 181J, and died in 
Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1892. He emigrated to America in 1836. and early engaged 
in newspaper writing, becoming contribntor to the Trilnme and also its cor- 
respondent. He was at one time editor of the Irish World, and \vas at all 
times influentially active in everything that related to the welfare of his native 
country. He was elected to Congress for several terms. 

- Thomas Corwin, of Ohio, the celebrated orator and statesman, was a 
United States Senator from 1845 to 1850. 

^ The dispute between the United States and Great Britain over the Oregon 
territory was terminated by treaty June 15, 1846, when the boundary of the 
United States west of the Rocky mountains was established at the 4Qth degree 
of north latitude to the channel between Vancouver and the mainland, running 
thence down this channel, through the strait of Juan de Fuca to the sea. 



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LETTER TO ROBINSON 

Regarding the Young Friends of Ireland banquet. Has paid a $25 note. 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I5I 

New York, Dec. 15, 1846 
Friend Robinson : 

Send me every bill introduced into Congress that you can con- 
veniently get, especially every one that relates to the Public Lands. 
Address them to me personally. 

When you have been three weeks writing for us, draw for your 
pay, send me the draft, and I will remit you the balance. I try 
hard to get something ahead, but can't get out of debt to save me. 
I have been expecting to do it by selling to March, and that, it is 
possible, may not take place. I won't give my concern away, for 
it is worth the time I put on it — valuing every thing we have at 
$60,000. Our materials cost $15,000; our Lease is readily worth 
$5,ooo-; our Books and' Stereotype plates have cost us many thou- 
sands, and our pa.per has been built up by hard work and is 
profitable. It has carried me through a good many bad spots, and 
I can't give it away now. 

Yours, 

Horace Greeley 



New York, Jan. 6, 1868 
My Friend: 

You ask me if it would be right for one to borrow money in order 
to establish in trade. I answer that I consider it highly unadvisable. 
Many have done so with success ; twice as many, I think, have failed 
to repay, and have thenceforward dragged a heavy chain to their 
graves. 

I can not realize that it is your duty to support your parents and 
educate your sister. I think the latter might earn the cost of her 
own education. 

I would not advise you to borrow the money you speak of even, 
were it pressed upon you. Life is too full of hazards. Life, even, 
is precarious ; health still more so. I think one should try to so 
order his affairs as to be always at liberty to die. Would you be 
resigned to die having borrowed $1,000 and spent it on your own 
education ? 

I will not urge the possibility that you might wish to marry one 
as poor as yourself, yet feel that you could not do so without 



152 



THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 



injustice to your creditor. In this case, you would refuse to marry; 
Init death will not he refused, nor sickness, even. 
I conclude that you ought not to run into deht. 

Yours. 
Horace Greeley 

Miss Helen R. Marshall, 
Kennett Sq. 
Penna. 




Fjom Recollections of a Busy Lift 

Greeley's first schoolhouse 















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ANOTHER ROBINSON LETTER 

Wants information about legislation 












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ADVICE TO A YOUNG LADY 

Do not borrow money to embark in trade 






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STUDIES AND REMINISCENCES 



STUDIES AND REMINISCENCES 



HORACE GREELEY AS A COLONIST 

Mr Ralph Meeker contributes the following account of Horace 
Greeley's connection with the founding of the community which 
bears his name. 

Three things in Horace Greeley's career will go down in history 
as permanent contributions to his noble fame : ( i ) founding the 
Tribune; (2) bailing Jefferson Davis; (3) association with suc- 
cessful cooperative colonization. They are a complete answer to 
unfriendly critics, who called him an impractical dreamer and saw 
neither wisdom nor good sense in his far-sighted policies. He was 
always a friend of new movements for industrial improvement and 
social reform. He had no patience with vain pretenders. Sincere 
almost to austerity, he was true to himself and was always ready 
to welcome new ideas for uplifting humanity. 

When Charles Fourier's cooperative social and industrial system 
was introduced into this country, and Brook Farm and similar 
Fourier phalanxes were established in several states, Mr Greeley 
gave the new gospel of industrial cooperation much space in the 
Tribune, as the writings of the French philosopher had been trans- 
lated into English. 

While his friends, George Ripley, afterward literary editor of 
the Tribune, Charles A. Dana, later managing editor, Nathaniel 
Hawthorne and other geniuses were trying to make a success of 
transcendental Brook Farm, one of the first of American phalanxes, 
near Roxbury, Mass., Mr Greeley joined the North American 
phalanx at Red Bank, N. J., while Nathan C. Meeker, of East 
Cleveland, O., was one of the founders of the Trumbull phalanx. 
It was situated on the Mahoning river, at Braceville, O., about 
forty miles southeast of Cleveland. This was in 1844--45. Three 
years later the Brook Farm organization dissolved, and about the 
same time the Ohio phalanx became bankrupt, chiefly because cer- 
tain of the Ohio members absorbed the earnings of the industrious 
men. while refusing to do the manual labor allotted them by a 
majority vote of the phalanx. 

The rules of the organization required members to perform ap- 
pointed tasks. In addition to a library, school, lecture room, com- 
munity hotel and house of worship, there were saw and grist mills, 
a machine shop and forge and other industrial establishments, be- 

155 



156 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

sides a large community farm, where bountiful crops and thrifty 
young orchards were coming into bearing, when the phalanx 
disbanded. 

The fact that fever and ague was to ravage the settlement in that 
rich valley of the Mahoning river did not seem to have occurred 
to the ardent disciples of Fourier. When the treasurer defaulted, 
the association went into bankruptcy, and Mr Meeker was glad to 
escape with half his fine library and his family, his young wife and 
two infant sons, Ralph and George, who were the first born in 
the Trumljull phalanx. 

Mr Greeley received Mr Meeker's reports of their experiences 
from time to time and did what he could to aid the struggling 
community, all of which served to deepen the friendship between 
the two men. But this failure did not destroy their faith in a 
properly conducted system of social and industrial cooperation. 

Mr Meeker assured Mr Greeley that such an organization, estab- 
lished on sound business principles and honestly managed, would 
be a success. Thus it was that years later, when Mr Meeker dis- 
covered in Colorado an ideal region for founding a colony on a 
Rocky mountain stream, the Cache la Poudre river, in sight of 
Long's peak and the Snowy range, Mr Greeley was enthusiastic 
and said, " Go ahead with your colony and I will back you in the 
Tribune." Then Mr Meeker issued his famous " Call." The result 
was electrical. Nearly a hundred thousand dollars were received in 
subscriptions for land and irrigation canals, in a few weeks, and 
despite many trials, much misrepresentation, to say nothing of open 
hostility on the part of established cattle interests, which claimed 
first rights to grass and water on the open range of the Great 
Plains, and the hostility of the whiskey element, which bitterly 
resented Mr Greeley's advice to Mr Meeker, the president, " Have 
no rum, and no fences in your colony," the scheme was carried out 
after years of opposition. I 

Mr Greeley had so much faith in Mr Meeker and the colony,: 
that he accepted the office of treasurer and allowed subscriptions 
to be received at the Tribune office, where Mr Meeker was agri- 
culture editor. Because of Mr Greeley's friendship, Mr Meeker 
named the colony in honor of his editor-friend, and this is why 
the largest and most important town in northern Colorado is known 
the world over as Greeley. 

When the Farmer's Club in New York sent a committee to in- 
spect and report on the new colony, they refused to believe in the 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I57 

32-inch radish and 4-pound potatoes, raised that first season in 
Greeley, on virgin prairie — on the open plains which for years 
had appeared on school maps as a part of the Great American 
desert. The owl-eyed experts from the New York Farmer's Club, 
without tasting them, said the radishes were monstrosities not fit 
to eat, that the potatoes must be excrescences, worthless for food. 
The marvelous success of the colony, backed from the start by Mr 
Greeley, the thousands of car loads of sugar beets and potatoes 
shipped annually, simply confounded the men who had so long 
called Mr Greeley a city farmer, a theorist and an impractical 
dreamer. 

Mr Meeker's often ridiculed predictions, published in the first 
years of the colony, that sugar beets that had made France and 
Germany rich, and apples and other fruits could be produced in 
Colorado, have all come true ; and three-quarters of a million of 
dollars in a single season have been paid the Greeley farmers for 
sugar beets, and as much more for potatoes and onions, saying 
nothing of fortunes from the highest grade wheat in the world. 

Something of the Tribune's interest in the project is exhibited 
in the extracts from its columns which are appended : 

Emigration to the West 

We are often tauntingly asked, " If you are so fond of farming 
and country life, why don't you try them?" Our answer is short 
and simple: JJ'c do. Every one of us who can aft'ord it has his 
home in the country, and spends there all the time that he can 
snatch from pressing duties, and hopes for the day when he can 
enjoy there more and more hours of each week, and ultimately all 
of them. At present, the oldest of our writers is wintering on his 
own place in Florida, as he has done for several past winters ; the 
rest of us would gladly do likewise if we might. But Work has 
claims to which Comfort must defer. 

Mr Nathan C. Meeker — for many years connected with the 
Tribune, as he expects to be for many more — proposes to plant a 
colony in an admirable location discovered by him during his recent 
trip to the Rocky mountains. It combines remarkable healthfulness 
with decided fertility and facility of cultivation, an abundance of 
serviceable timber with water in plenty for irrigation as well as 
power, beauty of landscape and scenery with exemption from dis- 
agreeable neighbors ; and a railroad will soon bring it within three 
days of St Louis and five from New York. Knowing Mr Meeker 
(who is a practical farmer) to be eminently qualified for leading 



158 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

and founding a colony, we advise temperate, moral, industrious, 
intelligent men who would like to make homes in the Far West to 
read his letter herewith published, and, should his plan suit them, 
write to him (not us) on the subject. — Neiv York Tribune, December 
4, i86g. 

A Western Colony 

MR Meeker's call 

I propose to unite with proper persons in the establishment of a 
colony in Colorado Territory. 

A location which I have seen is well watered with streams and 
springs, there are beautiful pine groves, the soil is rich, the climate 
is healthful, grass will keep stock the year round, coal and stone 
are plentiful, and a well-traveled road runs through the property. 
The land is either subject to entry under the homestead law, or it 
has not yet been brought into market, but it can be settled upon 
without other cost than $18 for 160 acres. In addition, the Rocky 
mountain scenery is the grandest and the most enchanting in 
America. I have never seen a place which presents so many 
advantages and opportunities. 

The persons with whom I would be willing to associate must be 
temperance men, and ambitious to establish good society, and among 
as many as fifty, ten should have as much as $10,000 each, or 
twenty, $5000 each, while others may have $200 to $1000 and 
upward. For many to go so far without means, can only result in 
disaster. After a time, poorer people can be received and have a 
chance. 

My own plan would be to make the settlement almost wholly in 
a village, and to divide the land into lots of 10 acres, and to divide j 
these into 8 lots for building purposes, and then to apportion to 
each family from 40 to 80, even 160 acres, adjoining the village. 
Northampton, Massachusetts, and several other New England 
towns and villages were settled in this manner, but some improve- 
ments are suggested. Since some outlying tracts will be more J 
desirable than others, a preference may be secured by selling them 
at auction, and the proceeds of such appropriated to the use of the 
colony ; and all the lots of the village should be sold, that funds may 
be obtained for making improvements for the common good — 
such as the building of a church, a town hall, a schoolhouse. and 
for the establishment of a library, by which means the lots will be 
worth five or ten times more than they cost ; and one of the very 
first public institutions should be a first-class school, in which not 




NATHAN COOK MEEKER 

Founder and president of Greeley colony, Colorado 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I59 

only common but the higher branches should be taught, including 
music. The town of Lincoln, the capital of Nebraska, adopted this 
plan on a large scale, and several hundred thousand dollars have 
already been obtained. 

Some of the advantages of settling in a village will be : easy 
access to schools and to public places, meetings, lectures, and the 
like, and society can be had at once. In planting, in fruit-growing, 
and in improving homes generally, the skill and experience of a 
few will be common to all, and much greater progress can be made 
than where each lives isolated. It seems to me that a laundry and 
bakery could be established, and the washing and baking could 
be done for all the community ; but other household work should 
be done by the families. In all this, the separate household, and 
the ownership of property, should be without change; and I only 
propose that, if there are any advantages in cooperation, they could 
be secured by a colony. Cheap rates of passage and freight could 
be secured, while many things, which all will want in the commence- 
ment, can be bought at wholesale. There are some other advantages 
which I think such a town will possess, and they are important; 
but in this announcement I do not think proper to mention them, 
and, besides, there are of course disadvantages. 

Farmers will be wanted, nurserymen, florists, and almost all 
kinds of mechanics, as well as capitalists to use the coal and water- 
power in running machinery. Inasmuch as millions of acres of 
excellent grass are in the vicinity, and which for years will lie 
open, stock can be kept by each family, and at a small expense 
it can be cared for by herdsmen employed by the people. The 
profit of stock-growing can be considered certain, for the locality 
is not as far from the Missouri river as Texas, whence immense 
numbers of cattle are driven. Besides, railroads are nearly com- 
pleted, and a railroad is almost certain to pass through the land I 
refer to. The establishment of a colony would hasten the day. 

After the colony shall be organized, it will be proper to appoint 
a committee of good men to visit the country and fix on the location, 
for there are other places, and a choice is to be made. 

The first settlers must of course be pioneers : for houses, mills, 
and mechanic shops are to be built, that families may come with 
few privations, and as long as six months will be required. 

Whatever professions and occupations enter into the formation 
of an intelligent, educated, and thrifty community should be em- 
braced by this colony; and it should be the object to exhibit all that 
is best in modern civilization. 



l6o THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

In particular should moral and religious sentiments prevail ; for 
without these qualities man is nothing. At the same time, tolerance 
and liherality should also prevail. One thing more is equally im- 
portant. Happiness, wealth, and the glory of a state, spring from 
the family, and it should be an aim and a high ambition to preserve 
the family pure in all its relations, and to labor with the best efforts 
life and strength can give to make the home comfortable, to beautify 
and to adorn it, and to supply it with whatever will make it attrac- 
tive and loved. 

This is in the vicinity of the mining region, which is destined to 
be developed more and more for years to come ; and, besides silver 
and gold, there are all other kinds of metals ; and the market for 
every kind of farm product is as good as in New York, perhaps 
better. It is a decidedly healthful region; the air is remarkably 
pure, summer is pleasant, the winter is mild, with little snow, and 
agues are unknown. Already, consumptives are going thither for 
their health, and tourists and visitors will find great attractions 
during the summer. Mineral springs are near, and perhaps on the 
locality I have referred to. Deer, antelope, wild turkeys, prairie 
chickens, and speckled trout abound ; but at present there are too 
many wolves and bears. 

I make the point that two important objects will be gained by 
such a colony. First, schools, refined society, and all the advantages 
of an old country, will be secured in a few years ; while, on the 
contrary, where settlements are made by the old method, people are 
obliged to wait 20, 40, and more years ; second, with free home-l 
steads as a basis, with the sale of reserved lots for the general good,| 
the greatly increased value of real estate will be for the benefit 
of all the people, not for schemers and speculators. In the success 
of this colony, a model will be presented for settling the remainder 
of the vast territory of our country. 

Persons wishing to unite in such a colony, will please address 
me at the Tribune office, stating their occupation and the value of 
the property which they could take with them. 

N. C. Meeker 
Neiv York, December, i86g 

New York Tribune, December 4, i86g. 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL l6l 

Colonization 

THE ORGANIZATION OF A WESTERN COLONY 

Room no. 24, Cooper Institute, was crowded to overflowing yes- 
terday with gentlemen from all parts of the country, to attend the 
colony meeting, which was announced in the Tribune a few days 
ago. Horace Greeley was appointed chairman. He opened the 
meeting with a brief address, as follows : 

This is a meeting of persons who propose emigrating in a colony 
to the West. The first thing to be done is to organize. One man can 
do the work of 100 men. I believe that there ought to be not only 
one, but 1000 colonies. Still I would advise no one who is doing 
well to leave his business and go West, unless he is sure of better- 
ing his condition. But there are many men working for wages who 
ought to emigrate. I dislike to see men in advanced life working 
for salaries in places where perhaps they are ordered about by boys. 
I would like to see them working for themselves. 

I do not know whether emigration is the best remedy, but I think 
so. New York is filled with people, yet there are thousands who 
want to come hither, never thinking that the cost of Hving eats up 
the greater part of their earnings. Mr Meeker does not wish to give 
the locality of the place where it is proposed to establish the colony, 
for speculators will flock in and buy up all of the desirable land. 
That is the way things are done nowadays. 

Mr N. C. Meeker, the originator of the colony movement, said : 

The number of persons expressing by letter a desire to join the 
Colorado colony, so-called, is over 800, and it will undoubtedly ex- 
ceed 1000, and according to the statement of the writers they are 
worth considerably more than $1,000,000, perhaps near $2,000,000. 
I judge that one-half are worth $1000 each, that a fair proportion 
are worth from $3000 to $5000, while there is a fair representation 
of those worth $10,000, and from this up to $50,000. There are a 
good many young men unmarried, worth generally from $200 to 
$500, and some more. All trades, professions, and pursuits are rep- 
resented, many are educated, and the majority are farmers. Fully 
one-half are church members. 

A great many inquiries have been made which I had no time to 
answer, and if I had little could be said at this stage of the move- 
ment. Of danger from the Indians it is to be said that no fears 
need be entertained, and if they were troublesome, the young men of 
the colony proposed alone would be glad to settle with them. I will 
now state some of the difficulties which are presented in the found- 
ing of the proposed colony. Every enterprise will be opposed by 
difficulties, and if they are not foreseen a failure may confidently be 
predicted. It is not likely that more than half of those proposing 
to go will do so; perhaps not more than 300. Now, if each is to 
have 160 acres of land, this will make 48,000 acres, and the distance 
from the proposed village to a large portion of the farms must be 



l62 THE UNIVERSITY OF -THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

from 2 to 3J/2 miles, and it will be seen at once that to accommodate 
all with land near this town is impossible — in short, it will be im- 
possible to reside in town and at the same time have what is called 
a western farm near by. Some could do so, it is true ; but, so far as 
possible, a fair division should be made. It is a question, then, 
whether the land adjoining the town should not be divided in parcels 
of from 3 to 10 acres, for the growing of grain and food for the 
family, which in addition to the town lot, would furnish ample sup- 
port. Then larger tracts could be owned further away. If the 
people are to live in a village, so as to enjoy all the advantages of 
schools and the like, something must be surrendered in the way of 
ambition to own much land near by, for to unite the two, however 
tiesirable, is impossible. Such small parcels will be all that mechanics 
and professional men can work, and farmers themselves can keep 
pretty busy on 10 acres. It is to be considered that in connection 
large quantities of land are open for the growing stock, which should 
be the leading pursuit of the colonists, and it is the only source from 
which much money can be expected. I take it that if men want to 
own large farms, the colonial plan is not one suited to this object. 
Still, upon the basis of small holdings, near the town the increase 
in value will be fully equal to the increase in value on isolated farms. 
I throw out these points that people may see for themselves how 
matters must stand. It is to be noted that lots and land were held 
in some of the best New England towns in precisely this manner, 
not because land was dear, but because there was no other way to 
accommodate the majority. 

Another difficulty lies in undertaking to occupy all the land under 
the Homestead. Land speculators are keen to perceive opportunities, 
and whenever they find great improvements on foot they are ready 
to enter large tracts, that, at a future day, may sell at a high price. 
This they call making an investment. I had thought of the prob- 
abilities in this case, but I was not strongly impressed with it, because 
the low price at which land can be bought of the Government made 
it evident that the difficulty would not be serious. The advantages 
of taking up land under the Homestead, by which one is obliged to 
occupy the ground five years before a title can be secured, over the 
buying at $1.25 an acre, are not great. I have now come to the 
conclusion that it is not safe to establish a colony unless the land is 
bought the first thing. When a location shall be decided upon, 
funds should be on hand to enter the land in a solid block. None 
of us would be willing to leave the comforts of home and remove 
to the Far West, to be hampered by land monopolists. Land can 
be bought with agricultural and other scrip, so that it will cost noti 
much more than 90 cents an acre. It would seem from the great 
number of applications, that several colonies can be formed, but let 
us have one first. 

A greater difficulty than all others lies in the fact that generally 
crops can not be grown in Colorado without irrigation. A stream 
runs through the locality to which I have made reference, but prob- 
ably there is not water enough for more than 50 farms, some of 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 163 

which must be small. Still it is claimed that there are limited dis- 
tricts where there is a sufficient fall of rain, and this is said to be one. 
Whether this is true, is to be determined by a committee. There 
are places where water is abundant, where the soil is rich, where a 
part of the land belongs to Government and a part to a railroad, but 
neither timber, stone, nor coal are near. There are other places 
beside, and I have written to leading men in the territory to have 
an investigation made. 

It is needed now that a committee be appointed to go on and 
search for a location that will be suited to the greatest variety of 
pursuits. The plan is certainly an experiment, and for a first 
colony more natural advantages will be required than for other 
colonies having for a guide the experience of the pioneer colony. 
I would name in the order of their importance that which should be 
sought: first, health fulness ; second, a varied and rich soil natural 
for grass ; third, timber and coal, or both ; fourth, iron ore ; fifth, 
adaptation to fruit; sixth, water power; seventh, beauty of scenery. 
The interests of so many families with the earnings of their lives 
and the comforts of home; the interests of so many industrious, 
skilful, intelligent, and well-to-do people must not be put in jeopardy 
for want of thorough investigation. 

Mr Greeley said that he was the descendant of ancestors who 
were the founders of one of the most noted colonies in the countr)'- 
— the Londonderry colony in New Hampshire — and today some 
of them own the land on which they live. Each man had a few- 
rods on the road, running back a mile, making 160 acres. The 
Salt Lake plan is good. The Mormons are a clever people. Their 
plan is to put eight settlers on 10 acres, allowing each man ij4 acres. 
He agreed with the remarks made by Mr Meeker, and he believed 
in irrigation. A very little water goes a great deal further than peo- 
ple generally suppose. In California they use much more than is 
necessary. In regard to emigrating, he said that many persons 
would find that, when they came to sell their places, their funds 
would be smaller than they anticipated. There are numbers of 
young men who have little money, but they are just as good as those 
who have more. He would get a deed of the land on which the 
colonists propose to settle before the village was staked out. All 
of the settlers will not have the same plans. Some will have chil- 
dren to educate, and they will want to live near the schools. Others 
who desire to raise stock had just as soon live two or three miles 
out of town. It is impossible to make rules for all. The small 
tract system wall not succeed in a new country, for when people 
get out on the prairies a feeling of expansion takes hold of them. 
He would not have less than 160 acres were he going to emigrate, 
even if he did not want to use it for several years. A working sec- 



164 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

retary should be appointed to answer letters, &c. The man who 
wants information ought to be willing to pay for it. A printed cir- 
cular would answer nine-tenths of the correspondents. An execu- 
tive committee and a committee on location should be appointed. 

Mr Arthur Murphy of Brooklyn — This is a serious business. It 
is the beginning of not only one, but of twenty colonies. The first 
must not be a failure for the success of all the others depends upon 
the success of the first. Each member must be satisfied, and it is 
necessary that we get acquainted with one another and then organ- 
ize. There must be harmony. 

Gen. Cameron of Elmira, N. Y. — What we need is an organiza- 
tion and money. I went to Indiana when it was a wilderness, and 
to Chicago when it was a mudhole, and now I want to go to Colo- 
rado. I will give $5 to begin with. Our proposed location should 
not be known even to the members of the colony. Nowhere in the 
globe is there another such a country as at the West. The great 
mining region is to be developed and to do this will create a market 
that can not be overstocked. We don't want New York for a mar- 
ket, we will have the continent to supply. (Applause.) 

Mr E. D. Carpenter of Putnam, Conn., said that he was greatly 
interested in what had been said. He was in favor of giving $5 to 
become a member. The 1000 letters received by Mr Meeker signify 
nothing. I did not write to him, yet I want to go, and I know many 
more of the same mind. 

Mr Gregory of New York City — The best colony I ever saw 
vvas the New-Braunfels, Texas ; also, the one at Castorville. They 
have not only a good colony, but a city. There are schools, churches, 
manufactories and in fact, everything that tends to civilize and refine 
the world. They commenced with 10 acres outside of the town, and 
with half an acre for the dwelling. 

Mr Greeley asked if the railroad companies would make a reduc- 
tion when there were 200 or 300 families going? 

N. C. Meeker — As to passengers, the fare from here to Sheridan 
is too high. I have no doubt but that half-fare tickets can be ob- 
tained. Some of the western roads have already promised this much, 
and I presume the others will also. 

A i)rovisional committee was then appointed to nominate officers 
The meeting was then adjourned until 3 o'clock, when resolutions 
were adopted in substance as follows : 

That the colony be called the " Union colony," the officers of 
which were then elected, namely : 



HORACE GREELEY ISIEMORIAL 165 

N. C. Meeker, president; Gen. [Robert A.] Cameron, vice presi- 
dent ; Horace Greeley, treasurer ; Executive committee : Richmond 
Fiske, Hoosick Falls, Rensselaer county, N. Y. ; Arthur ]\Iurphy, 
No. 157 Adams St., Brooklyn; Nathanial Paul, Wakefield. N. H. ; 
C. O. Poole, No. 125 East 17th St., N. Y. ; G. C. Shelton. Seymour, 
Conn. 

That each member pay $5 for current expenses, and also hold 
subject to the call of the treasurer $150 for a purchase fund for the 
land to be bought, and that no member can buy more than 160 
acres, and that said money shall be refunded if the land is not set- 
tled within a reasonable period, to be prescril^ed by the executive 
committee. 

The number of persons who paid their initiation fee ($5) was 
59. The greatest enthusiasm prevailed, and all agreed that they 
had never attended a more harmonious meeting. Many came with- 
out money, but they promised to send it by mail on their return 
home. Those willing to subscribe to the general plan of the colony 
as has been stated, and to contribute to the locating committee fund, 
may do so by forwarding their address and $5 to the treasurer, 
Horace Greeley, at the Tril)une office. This amount from each 
member is necessary to enable the committee to go West and select 
the desired location. Further notice of future movements will be 
given through the columns of the Tribune. — Nen' York Tribune, 
December 24, i86p. 

Horace Greeley's Letter on Greeley, Colorado 

Greeley, Colorado, Oct. rj, 18^0. 
My Friend : 

Let me give you some idea of this place and people. 

Between the main branches which form the river Platte, several 
smaller rivers or large creeks issue from the eastern base of the 
Rocky Mountains, and, after a short cruise over the Plains, fall into 
the North or the South Platte. The largest of these is the Laramie ; 
next comes the Cache a Poudre, which rises in the snowy range near 
Long's Peak and runs nearly due east into the South Platte, about 
half-way of its course over the Plains. The new Denver Pacific 
Road connecting the Kansas Pacific at Denver with the Union 
Pacific at Cheyenne crosses the Cache a Poudre five miles above its 
junction with the South Platte, and here is located around the rail- 
road station, which has as yet no depot, the new village of Greeley, 
youngest cousin of Jonah's gourd. 



l66 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Greeley, Colorado 

The location was pitched upon by the locating committee of our 
Union Colony about the ist of March last, the land secured soon 
afterward, and the settlers began to arrive on the bare, bleak 
prairie early in May. There were no buildings, and nothing whereof 
to erect them, and the soil could not be cultivated to any purpose 
without irrigation ; yet here we have already some seven hundred 
families, three hundred houses built or nearly finished in the vil- 
lage, one hundred more scattered on the prairie around, and prob- 
ably two thousand persons in all, with more daily arriving. We 
have an irrigating canal which takes water from the Cache six miles 
above and distributes it over one thousand acres, as it will do over 
several thousands more ; and we are making another in the north side 
of the Cache very much longer, which is to irrigate at least twenty 
thousand acres. We are soon to have a newspaper (we have al- 
ready a bank), and we calculate that our colony will give at least five 
hundred majority for a Republican President in 1872, after harvest- 
ing that year a wheat crop of not less than fifty thousand bushels, 
with other crops to match. And we hope to incite the foundation 
of many such colonies on every side of us. 

But enough of this. I spoke to the colonists in the open air 
yesterday, traversed the settlement and examined its canal, to the 
head, and leave this morning on the train for home, where I hope to 
be, thankful for a safe and rapid journey, on Monday evening next. 
This letter would reach you sooner if I carried it. but I wish it to 
bear the proper post-mark, and to show you that I write at sunrise, 
looking off upon the Rocky Mountains, which present a bold and 
even front some twenty-five miles westward, with Long's Peak 
about sixty miles ofif as the crow flies, and many others covered with 
eternal snow glistening behind and around it. Excuse great haste, 
for I have much to do before leaving at g.45, and believe me ever 

Yours 

Horace Greeley 
— Some Familiar Letters by Horace Greeley, 
Lippincott's, March i8pi, p. 348. 



I 



HORACE GREELEY, POLITICAL 
AND SOCIAL LEADER 



HORACE GREELEY, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL 

LEADER 

BY RICHARD E. DAY 

Horace Greeley was born February 3, 181 1, in a rural New 
Hampshire town. He was one of seven children, and his oppor- 
tunities for attendance at school were limited. But we learn from 
Mrs Clendenin's sketch of her father, contributed to the " Genealogy 
of the Greely-Greeley Family," that the " mother kept her boy close 
beside her as she spun, and told him beautiful stories and bits of 
history and fairy lore, and sang sweet Scottish ballads till his mind 
was kindled and he longed to read himself " ; and that the compan- 
ionship of books was his early good fortune. 

It will not be said that the little lad on the small New England 
farm lacked means of education, since he had a mother who knew 
how to touch the finer chords of childish sensibility, and his mind 
was in contact with books. Systematic training was to come in the 
school of afifairs ; nioral discipline he knew from the first ; and genius 
must generally be accounted happy when the earliest influences to 
which it is subject reach it in unmethodical fashion. 

When Horace was ten years old, the family removed to West 
Haven, Vt. He had already revealed an inclination toward the 
pursuit in which his achievements were to be brilliant and endur- 
ing. His first application, at the age of eleven, for an opportunity 
to learn the printer's art, was rejected, but three years later he was 
admitted to an apprenticeship in the office of the Northern Specta- 
tor, at East Poultney, wdiere his mental growth was rapid, and his 
absorption and command of general information won the admiration 
of his elders. 

In 1830 the newspaper was suspended ; so the boy of nineteen set 
forth as a journeyman printer, with a future to work out, unaided. 
He went to Pennsylvania, to which the Greeley household had re- 
moved; and found brief employment in dift'erent places. Business 
misfortunes had gathered around his father; and it is a shining 
feature of this chapter of Greeley's youth that he contributed some- 
thing from his meager earnings to the maintenance of the home, 
while his own progress was beset with rugged difficulties. But the 
city summoned him to its theater of struggle. Of struggle he al- 
ready knew much ; but he was to match his strength with that of 
greater gladiators than he had met. and come into the full stream 
of ideas characteristic of his time. To New York City he journeyed, 

169 



I/O TIIK UNiVIiKSlTV OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

in 1 83 1, a part of the way on foot, arriving there with little money 
and with no earthly reliance save willing hands, iron purpose and 
the undeveloped power of whose eager stirring he was conscious. 

The period of the young stranger's arrival and early labors in 
New York was important in the history of human rights. In Eng- 
land, it was the period of Catholic emancipation and the reform bill, 
by which representation in Parliament was adjusted to population. 
It saw the abolishment of slavery in the British colonies and the 
passage of a factory act, limiting the labor of children. In France 
the rule of reaction and absolutism had been broken by revolution, 
and agitation for political and mental freedom was under way. In 
America William Lloyd Garrison had launched his assault against 
human bondage, announcing that he would not " think, or speak, 
or write with moderation." It was an era of transition in politics. 
Nullification, antimasonry and national republicanism disputed with 
the Jackson democracy the possession of public confidence. The 
year 1834 found Greeley issuing and editing the New Yorker, a 
literary and political paper; and that year was distinguished by the 
rise of the Whig party, itself a medium of transition to the conflict 
which was soon to divide the American people. In 1838, at the in- 
vitation of Thurlow Weed, the young editor took charge of a cam- 
paign sheet put forth in Albany, the design of which was to further 
the election of William H. Seward as Governor of New York and 
promote the progress of Whig principles. Both objects received 
a vigorous impulse from this new personal force in American poli- 
tics. Two years afterward his Log Cabin was a strong agency m 
winning votes for William Henry Harrison, Whig candidate for 
President ; and nothing could have been more refreshing to a reflec- 
tive citizen in that exuberant canvass than the union of thought 
with enthusiasm which its columns exhibited. It is of much signifi- 
cance that the formative stage of Horace Greeley's opinions was 
attained at a period when parties were in a fluid condition, and issues 
were changing; since opportunity was given for the growth of his 
convictions free from the pressure of one dominating idea. The 
cause of African emancipation could not have failed to impress his 
conscience ; but he did not conceive that that cause would be best 
served by separating it from other questions with which it was 
complicated; and he had little difficulty in determining that the im- 
mediate duty of the enemies of slavery was to oppose its extension 
and check the arrogance of the slave-holding interest. 

The breadth of Greeley's sympathies enabled him to enter into 
other causes than that of the negro; and during that larger political 






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THE FIRST ISSUE OF THE NEW-YORKER 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I/I 

life which opened before him with the estabhshment of the Tribune, 
in the spring of 1841, he was the friend of all that were oppressed, 
the foe of all oppressors. Living a personal life in a wider measure 
than most journalists, his interests overflowed the intensely individ- 
ual newspaper which he conducted. His sympathy with the liberal 
movement in Ireland and the uprisings on the coiitinent of Europe 
in 1848 and subsequently was strongly manifested. In the lecture 
platform he found a place for the dissemination of ideas in behalf 
of the cause of labor, ideas on social and educational themes — ideas 
that were more stimulating to the minds of his hearers than ilailer- 
ing to their prejudices. 

Notable always was Greeley's interest in undertakings and expe- 
riments which offered to advance the welfare of farmers or work- 
ingmen ; in a particular manner he expressed his regard for printers 
and newspaper workers. At one period he advocated economic 
features of the socialistic scheme known as Fourierism. The prin- 
ciple of profit-sharing was introduced into the organization of tiie 
Tribune ; and his name is cherished in New York Typographical 
Union No. 6 as that of its first president, elected January 19, 1850. 
More than any other American of equal eminence in his time he 
divined the depth and reach of the labor movement. He viewed 
the rights of the laborer not merely as affected by slavery or by day 
wages, but in a more vital relation — as connected with social oppor- 
tunity. Borne onward by his tremendous idealism, he thought of 
labor as the coming heir to all the good things accumulated for the 
spirit of man by the ages. The substance of his best counsel to labor 
was this : Make yourself ready for that day. 

The Whig party, toward the close of its stormy existence, saw 
leadership lodged more and more surely with men competent to 
interpret the new spirit of the North. Of these Horace Greeley 
was probably chief ; and, when the party which had boasted a Web- 
ster and a Clay gave place to one called to a task which Whiggism 
was incompetent to perform, and all other interests yielded to the 
question whether the slave power should be determinedly resisted, 
the Tribune became an oracle of might, not as imposing opinions on 
unwilling minds, but as giving back to the conscience of the free 
states its own deepest utterances, made nobly articulate. 

It is often asserted, in considering ihe influence enjoyed by jour- 
nalists of the Greeley type, that the superior independence of the 
present generation of newspaper readers prevents the reappearance 
of such an influence. Improbable as it is that the personal sway 
which the founder of the Tribune exerted will be attained again by 



1/2 THE UNIVEKSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

a newspaper editor, there is a different explanation. The men to 
whom the Tribune appealed in the fifties have not been surpassed 
in intelligence and earnestness by any generation of Americans, [f 
they trusted Horace Greeley, it was because they had become well 
satisfied of his honesty and clearness of vision. They believed in 
him, as they came to believe in Abraham Lincoln ; and it is yet to be 
proved, though constantly assumed, that disbelief is a more intel- 
lectual quality than belief. The social organization is now so com- 
plex and the interests which compel the citizen's attention so numer- 
ous as to forbid the renewal of that type of heroic leadership which 
prevailed when one great issue absorbed the nation's life. 

It was the hope of the Republican leaders to stay the encroach- 
ments of slavery and yet prevent a disruption of the nation. There 
were men in the field who were dedicated solely to the destruction 
of slavery. They were less troubled over the possible results to our 
Federal Union of their agitation and the flaming protests in the 
South which their activity provoked. Their task was simple, seer- 
like, splendid. But, when the clash of two incompatible civilizations 
occurred at Charleston, April 12, 1861, the work of the mere agitator 
was done. He could lift his voice for the Union ; but he did this sub- 
ject to the embarrassments of one who had denounced the venerated 
instrument by which the Union was held together as " an agree- 
ment with hell." The President who was gathering to his side the 
whole available strength of the North could not seek his counselors 
among those whom many held responsible in a measure for the 
war. Massachusetts yielded the first place to New York, with her 
immense resources of men and money and her conceded conser- 
vatism, as South Carolina in the South surrendered the first place 
to the more powerful and more moderate Virginia. At this junc- 
ture the great editor, with the remarkable organ of opinion which 
he was twenty years building, became a far more potent figure 
than Garrison, the fiery evangel of abolitionism, or that still more 
gifted prophet, Wendell Phillips. Horace Greeley too had been 
a voice in the wilderness. But his whole soul shrunk from the 
fearful consequences involved in the logic of the antislavery move- 
ment. He even argued, when armed issue was about to be joined, 
that the decision of upholding our federal system might safely be 
left to the uncoerced suft'rages of the southern people, thus declar- 
ing in effect that he would subordinate the cause of emancipation to 
the preservation of nationality. And his record in relation to this 
proposal gave added weight to his later pleadings for the liberation 
of the slaves. 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I73 

Abraham Lincoln longed for the hour when he might give ettect 
to the prayer of slavery-hating men, but he knew better than any 
other when the hour had come. The ability to wait is not the 
greatest quality of a statesman, but it is not the least. Like other 
human qualities which have their roots in common sense, rather 
than in high imagination, it is often underrated. Lincoln possessed 
it emmently. \\ hen he discerned the political conditions under 
which the Proclamation of Emancipation would be most effective, 
he found a massive sentiment at his command which Greeley more 
than anyone else had summoned. 

In Lincoln the statesman prevailed over the lawyer, when he 
refused to answer the theoretical question whether the states in 
rebellion had put themselves outside the Union; but he undertook 
to treat them as if their national existence was never extinguished, 
but its functions were simply suspended. Removal of the ligature 
attached by the act of secession would allow the national life to 
circulate once more through the paralyzed members. He had shown 
a disposition to recognize the desires of people in the conquered 
states to reestablish their relations with the federal government ; 
but what was more impressive, and counted for more a few years 
after his death, was the spirit of brotherhood which kindled all his 
declarations touching the South. 

Andrew Johnson was not ordained to the office of pacificator. 
The elements of his own character forbade him the part. With a 
tactlessness on which his opponents could safely count, and a love 
of combat for the pure joy of fighting, he must have quarreled with 
a congress led by men such as Wade and Stevens, had their policy 
toward the southern states been less punitive, and the South taken an 
attitude less challenging to the champions of the freedmen. Nearly 
two years after Johnson's succession to the presidency, Congress 
divided the territory of the Confederacy into districts, over which 
it set military commanders, clothed with powers of government and 
reconstruction ; and under their direction the carpet-bag establish- 
ments started on their course. But a truer successor to Lincoln had 
arisen, not in a place of executive authority, but in the lists of public 
discussion. On the second morning after the surrender at Appomat- 
tox, Horace Greeley said in the Tribune : " We plead against pas- 
sions certain to be at this moment fierce and intolerant ; but on our 
side are the ages and the voice of history." Two days later he 
reasoned : " Davis did not devise nor instigate, the rebellion ; on the 
contrary, he was one of the latest and most reluctant of the notables 
of the Cotton States to renounce definitively the Union. His prom- 



174 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

inence is purely official and representative ; the only reason for 
hanging him is that you therein condemn and stigmatize more per- 
sons than in hanging anyone else." When, ten weeks after the 
passage of Thaddeus Stevens's military reconstruction law, Greeley 
attached his name to Davis's bail bond, his act was a more emphatic 
declaration than he could otherwise have penned of his belief that 
the time for the reconciliation of states had come. This self-sacrific- 
ing deed placed him at the head of the workers for peace between 
brethren long divided. From this position, with all the obloquy, 
all the antagonism, which it attracted, he was not to be dislodged. 
Erratic, disloyal even, he seemed to many who were incapable of 
judging him. Let us be sure that the vilification which then assailed 
the old abolitionist, and grew to greater volume in the closing months 
of his life, was harder to bear than any which he had endured as 
the advocate of the bondman, because it proceeded from men who 
once followed his counsel. But, when a man has allied himself 
with an inspiring cause, and has appealed to " the ages and the voice 
of history," he is armed against calumny, can look with pity on mis- 
understanding, and will account his suffering but a slight contri- 
bution to the good of man. 

It should not be difficult now to discuss with candor the Liberal 
Republican movement, of which Greeley became the head, by his 
nomination for President. Newspapers which opposed the move- 
ment were satisfied to describe the Cincinnati convention, by which 
his name was offered to the voters, as a gathering of disappointed 
place-hunters, Adullamites with a miscellaneous collection of griev- 
ances. But the truth has passed into history that the defects of 
President Grant's administration had repelled from his support 
some of the ablest and purest men in the Republican party. Heated 
partisans could believe, perhaps, that Greeley's political behavior 
for the preceding five years had taken its character from disappoint- 
ments and ambition. But, when the nomination found him, it sought 
the man who most embodied the conviction which made the Liberal 
Republican revolt permanently significant. If the movement had 
been chiefly a demand for improvement in the civil service, a choice 
might have been made that would have presented the claims of that 
reform more sharply. Had the free traders dictated the utterances 
of the convention on the tariff, Greeley could not have been its can- 
didate. A different selection would have given fitter expression to 
the criticism aimed at President Grant, on account of the character 
of his appointments. But no other citizen, north or south, could 
say with the same forcefulness as Greeley said, in his tour through 



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t *WaukC4bm^|* 



THE FIRST ISSUE OF THE TRIBUNE 



1 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 175 

the country, " Let hatred and bitterness, let contention and jealousy 
perish forever. Let us forget that we have fought. Let us remem- 
ber only that we have made peace." The adoption of that sentiment 
was the feature which gives the Liberal Republican convention of 
1872 a place among great national conventions. 

The issue forced upon the country when the chief apostle of recon- 
ciliation was made a presidential nominee, encountered the usual 
fate of such premature undertakings. But the sentiment in favor 
of the restoration of the southern people to their full status in the 
civil framework of the country expressed itself with vehemence 
four years later in the candidacy of Samuel J. Tilden; and, when it 
seemed to have suffered defeat through the award made by the 
Electoral Commission, Rutherford B. Hayes gave it vital operation 
by promptly withdrawing United States troops from the statehouses 
of South Carolina and Louisiana. A " patriotic attachment to the 
Union," the language of President Hayes in his message of Decem- 
ber 1877, quickly replaced in southern minds the sullen resentments 
which less enlightened policies had sown. The spirit of good will, 
thus sent forth on its mission, bound up the wounds of the war, and 
gradually gave to our country the national unity which in the first 
century of its independence all the forces of political and military 
genius had failed to bestow. 

A WONDERFUL DECADE 

HORACE GREELEY — ORATOR, EDITOR, NATIONAL 
BENEFACTOR 

In October 1856, the presidential campaign was growing warm; 
" Buchanan or Fremont " was the question. Tidings came to Fort 
Edward that Horace Greeley of the Tribune was to pass through 
the village and could tarry for ah hour, giving an address if desired. 
The young men sprang to the front ; the only public hall was secured 
and all people within a radius of two miles w'ere informed by 
house-to-house canvass. " every member," of the opportunity of a 
lifetime to hear the great champion of free soil and free men. 

At four o'clock the hall was thronged to its capacity, so that on 
the arrival of the speaker it was with difficulty he could be pushed 
and pulled to the platform. Stumbling awkwardly to a seat, there 
was something grotesque in his aspect for a moment, and a bevy of 
Democratic young ladies giggled quite audibly, to the indignation 
of a giant constable, the only policeman in town, who loudly rebuked 
them and proposed that they be removed. But the chivalrous Gree- 
ley said, " No, I want them all to hear me." 



176 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

The appearance of Mr Greeley was unique: his broad shoulders 
clad in a coat too large for him ; a limp, unlaundered turnover collar; 
heavy spectacles on nose, with a head of a giant, bald at the dome, 
and abundant uncombed locks on either side, a clean-shaven face, 
luxuriant whiskers beneath his chin and cheeks, a smile on his beam- 
ing features, childlike and bland. A more open countenance one 
never saw, a countenance on which candor and sincerity were most 
legibly stamped. On looking at him you thought of a full, round 
harvest moon. 

If on mounting his Pegasus we smiled at his awkwardness, when 
he was in saddle we at once sat up and took notice, and as he rode 
on with a pace more and more vigorous, finally using whip and spur 
and making a terrific cavalry charge, we looked, listened, and won- 
dered, our only fear that he would make an end. He began with 
slowly spoken sentences, in a somewhat drawling manner, and not 
without nasal twang, suggestive of the traditional Yankee backwoods 
orator (known so well to literature, but rarely seen in real life). 
Very shortly, however, he quickened his rate of utterance and put 
a heavier weight on his emphasis. Presently we gasped at a glancing 
epigram in which was lodged a catapult of truth. 

We were now made aware that it was a mighty man we were 
hearing. The platform which he commended was " progressive " 
but " sane." " No more slave states," but the compromises of a 
Constitution must be respected. The Union must be preserved. 
For the hot-headed political abolitionists. Garrison and Phillips, he 
had only tingling sarcasms. They were pestilential disturbers. The 
American people were patriotic enough and wise enough to meet 
new problems as they should arise, and in God's own good time, 
emancipation could come in a legal, orderly, and constitutional man- 
ner. We had all been involved in the introduction of slavery into 
the nation, and we should be willing to bear our part in devising and 
carrying out a constitutional policy for its elimination. Meanwhile 
let all good men stand together. 

Mr Greeley's appeal to young men to cast their first vote for free 
soil and free men was luminous, forcible, eloquent and irresistible. 
So thought the writer, who, though a hereditary and zealous Demo- 
crat, then and there decided to cast his vote for Fremont and Day- 
ton. — "A Reminiscent Book," h\ JosepJi E. King D. D., pages 
65-67. 



NEWSPAPER COMMENT 



NEWSPAPER COMMENT 

Horace Greeley 

It is the fashion of a certain school of writers to sneer at Horace 
Greeley as one of the diminishing figures of American history. His 
weaknesses and his eccentricities lend themselves readily to ridicule. 
His inconsistencies were glaring and his yearning for office was 
pitiful. Yet a noble mind is not to be measured by its infirmities. 

Tomorrow is the one hundredth anniversary of Greeley's birth, 
and no tribute that will be paid to his memory is likely to over- 
estimate either his influence in one of the two critical periods of 
the Republic or his disinterested service to human freedom. For 
thirty-five years Horace Greeley was perhaps the greatest political 
force that this country ever knew except Thomas Jefiferson. 

They call Clay the father of the protective system, but the real 
father was Greeley, who, through the columns of the New York 
Tribune, converted the farmers to the doctrine and has kept them 
in line ever since. The present protective policy of the Republican 
party is still sustained at the polls by the arguments that Horace 
Greeley hammered into the minds of the agricultural population 
more than sixty years ago. 

Lincoln won immortality as the emancipator of the slave, but it 
was Greeley who nominated Lincoln for President, and Greeley's 
long fight against the slave power was the most important element 
in Lincoln's election. The New England abolitionists were a small 
factor in that contest compared with the editor of the Tribune. 

It is true that when the irrepressible conflict began, Greeley was 
opposed to coercing the seceding states ; but this does not prove 
that Greeley was wholly wrong. So impartial an historian as James 
Bryce has expressed the opinion that a higher statesmanship might 
have averted the Civil War, and it was not to Greeley's discredit 
that he had no desire to see the Nation carelessly plunged into the 
most terrible conflict of modern history. 

Much has been made of Greeley's controversy with Lincoln, in 
which Greeley was unquestionably in the wrong; but it was an 
honest difference of opinion on both sides. Greeley was tempera- 
mentally incapable of agreeing with anybody for long, and Lincoln 
was the last man in the world to claim for himself the gift of 
infallibility. The fact is worth recording in this connection that 
perhaps the fairest, ablest and most just estimate of Abraham 
Lincoln that has ever been written came from the pen of Horace 
Greeley. 

179 



l8o THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Greeley's reputation would rest on a higher plane if he had never 
accepted the Democratic nomination for President in 1872. He 
was a greater man as an editor than as a presidential candidate. 
Both he and the Democratic party were right on the reconstruction 
question, but they were right at the wrong time, and Greeley was 
decidedly not the man to lead the campaign against Grant's admin- 
istration. His nomination weakened his influence. He had to 
turn his back on all his economic principles, on his own record, on 
his former political associates, and he was disastrously beaten, 
although he polled 100.000 more votes than Seymour received in 
1868. As Blaine once said, Greeley more than any other man of 
his day had the quality of being able to call out the full strength 
of the opposition. 

Greeley's real fame must rest in the files of the New York 
Tribune. Few Americans have reared loftier monuments to their 
own genius and power than did this schoolmaster of republican 
institutions, or monuments upon which can be found fewer stains. — 
The Nezv York JVorld, Fchrnary 2, igii. 



Horace Greeley 

Americanism intense, inclusive, even exuberant, was expressed 
in Mr Greeley's career from beginning to end ; and yet, it would 
not be altogether just to omit heredity, environment and other 
influences from those which shaped the life and made the man. 
To hold him up complete as an example to youth would be both 
idle and unwise. Yet there was in his life so much that was sound, 
pure and wholesome, a sincerity and a genuineness, that its study 
may well be commended as not only one of the most interesting, 
but one of the most instructive and stimulating. Based upon the 
substantial principles of self-respect and self-support, of industry, 
economy, integrity, Mr Greeley is and always will be a living 
example for every aspiring and earnest young American, while his 
outbursts in politics, his excursions in sociology and theology, were 
but the genuine expressions of an honest and sympathetic nature,, 
intensely devoted to the principles of human liberty and equalityj 
as he understood them and desirous to aid by all his power in theitj 
universal acceptance and establishment. | 

Possibly the three " slogans," as we would call them today, by 
which Mr Greeley's fame and influence Were most widely extended: 
would give a better idea of the character and mentality of the mail 
than any critical or profound analysis. '' Go West, young man,'| 




SENATOR GEORGE A. SLATER 

Who as Assemblyman of the 4th assembly district 
of Westchester county, introduced bill provid- 
ing for appropriation for Greeley monument at 
Chappaqua 

Note: Governor John A. Dix failed to sign the bill, so mon- 
ument was erected by private subscription 



HORACE GKEELEV MEMORIAL l8l 

condensed years of hard labor, of the strictest economy, ahnost 
penury, on New Hampshire rocks and in Vermont clearings and 
printing offices, and was infused with wisdom from the travels and 
larger views of adult years, when life had expanded and absorbed 
the meaning of the great area from which the young New Englander 
had been excluded. " On to Richmond " was the irrepressible out- 
burst of indignant patriotism and loyalty, which would not be 
smothered by political complications, impatient of personal am- 
bition and jealousies in the field, and looking only for the immediate 
results, the end of the war and the vindication of the Union in 
the shortest possible time. " The way to resume is to resume," 
simply expressed in a sentence like impatience of devious and 
temporizing politicians in the name of statesmanship ; that sturdy 
and earnest personal integrity, which paid every bill, no matter at 
what sacrifice ; and that inflexible determination to be honest with 
all men, and that simple-mindedness which made good the spirit as 
well as the letter of every promise. 

To speak of Mr Greeley as a journalist, in terms of the present, 
would be difficult. Times have changed and we are changed with 
them; and, the journalism of today, whatever its merits or demerits, 
has small place, if any, for men of the Horace Greeley type and 
methods. No more honorable chapters in American journalism 
exist than those of the Tribune in its early palmy days under Mr 
Greeley and his associates, Raymond. Ripley, Dana, Margaret 
Fuller, Curtis and the others, whose names have become classic ; 
nor in its later renaissance, under the present Ambassador to Great 
Britain, whose staff, with Hay, Bromley, Congdon, Brooks, Winter 
and those with them, was the envy and the despair of all rivals. 
But those days and men are gone, and we are facing new conditions 
and new demands. That Mr Greeley was able to lay deep and 
permanent the intellectual and political foundations of the great 
institution over whose corner stone he sits in bronze, is the achieve- 
ment which will perpetuate his memory and long vitalize it in the 
hearts and the honor of his countrymen. — Tlic Brooklyn Standard 
Union. January 2g, igii. 



He of the prophets 

Born among the lowly, reared with adversity dogging his youth- 
ful steps, growing into the zenith of his power through his mighty 
battle for justice, right and truth, and then to die when he had 
thought to spend his declining years among those he had inspired 



l82 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

to build their homes here, Horace Greeley's centenary comes to the 
people of Weld county pregnant with meaning. 

When the groan and shock of war had brought liberation of the 
slaves, probably the dearest wish of Greeley, his prophetic eye saw 
the expansion and development that must follow the lean years 
when brother fought brother. He had met the West and loved it. 
He saw the glowing future possible for the wide ranges that lay 
waiting. He sounded the clarion call for those who dared to brave 
the untried. 

No dominion of sect or creed confined his efforts. His was the 
zeal for the greater things than the exposition of his individual 
ideas. He pointed the way for all humanity to the new land where 
he foresaw a victory for the arts of peace. 

And now, we of a fair city in the midst of the fertile plain-', 
may well do him honor and hail him as the blessed prophet of the 
West. — The Greeley Daily Tribune, February 2, igii. 



Other judgments 

The few famous journalists are not much more than a name, the 
" dream of a shadow." Even the actor leaves, perhaps, a morei 
tangible inheritance. Besides, a " great journalist's " reputation isj 
more or less pilfered from obscurer or totally ol^scure men whoj 
cooperated in his work, a work essentially collective and impersonal, 
save in the apprehension of the dear public that dearly loves a . 
'■' hero " and worships a cockade. If the old white hat and whitell 
coat of Horace Greeley are still visible, if he survives in some sense 
while a more accomplished journalist such as Henry J. Raymond 
is hardly a name, this posthumous good fortune is due to Mr 
Greeley's personal incursions into politics, to his part in the anti- 
slavery legend, to the hold that he long had upon the farmers and 
tlie school teachers, not least perhaps to the homeliness, the vigor, 
the salient peculiarities of the man. Gone are the amenities of 
Eatanswill, the old fierceness of newspaper epithet and controversy, 
that ancient fashion of journalism which was illustrated by the 
author of " Thanatopsis " and editor of the Evening Post when he 
beat a brother editor with a cowskin in front of Philip Hone's house 
at Park place and Broadway, or by James Watson W^ebb's en- 
counters with the elder Bennett and with Duff Green. The " little 
villain " and " you lie, you villain, you lie " style of journalism is now 
practised only by an illustrious amateur 



HORACE GKEELEV MEMORIAL 183 

Mr Greeley called about him many men of various distinction, 
but his own chief and singular distinction nuist remain unknown 
to the moderns or be taken on trust, lie had a way of writing of 
his own — clear, straightforward, largely Saxon, lit up sometimes 
by passion, sometimes by humor, recalling, if anybody, Franklin 
and Cobbett. If not a great journalist, he was a great editorial 
writer. The young gentlemen from whom of all horned cattle he 
most prayed to be delivered can find few better models of style. — 
Neiv York Sun, February j, iqii. 



Horace Greeley, the centenary of whose birth occurs today, was 
a giant in American journalism, and his type is practically as extinct 
as that of the dinosaurus whose fossil skeleton was dug out the 
other day from the Palisades. His was, above all else, political 
journalism. . . . He was deeply and sincerely concerned for the 
advancement of the mass of the people, and especially the great 
class, born to privation, toil and difficulty, from which he sprang. 
He had boundless hope for their betterment, and if he sometimes 
embraced too promptly and warmly schemes that promised its 
attainment, his sympathies never cooled or his energies tired in 
their behalf. He was aggressive and enjoyed conflict. His capacity 
for work had no limit, or his love for it. . . . 

Mr Greeley's influence upon the life of his country in the three 
decades following the founding of the Tribune was very great, and 
on the whole it was beneficent. In matters of public policy he aided 
as much as any other one man in rallying the forces of public 
opinion. Of course the greatest of these was slavery, and as to 
that his service was unquestionably more effective than that of any 
other journalist. Curiously enough, his surviving reputation with 
regard to slavery is that of a radical and an extremist. In reality, 
he was in the main a sagacious, temperate, long-headed, and patriotic 
opponent of the extension of slavery. He was not an abolitionist 
until the slave power drew the sword against the Union. He 
ardently defended freedom of speech for the abolitionists, as for 
all others. . . . After the war he labored with all his might for 
amnesty and impartial suffrage — a dream undoubtedly, but the 
beautiful dream of a generous soul. When he signed the bail bond 
of Jefiferson Davis, he did a noble act which cost him dear, as he knew 
,it would. Save that of Lincoln, no name should stand higher on 
the roll of the true friends of the South living in the North in those 
troubled times. — Neiv York Times, February j, 191 1. 



lcS4 TJIE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE UF NEW VOKK 

There is one community that is celebrating with more than per- 
functory enthusiasm today the Horace Greeley centenary, and that 
is the northern Colorado city which bears his name and in which 
he felt a deep interest during the latter years of his life. The 
" Greeley colony " was mainly composed of New England people 
and was the tirst irrigated territory in the state. Its settlers were 
imbued with idealistic principles. Tlieir plan of progress was to 
some extent cooperative. It was to encourage churches and schools 
and get along without saloons and it has lived up to its prospectus 
better than most new settlements. Air Greeley visited the town in 
1870 and in a speech to the people in front of the Greeley Tribune 
expressed some disappointment that the place had not grown faster. 
But, says a correspondent of the Springfield Republican, if he could 
look upon the colony after forty-one years, " he would see a broad 
territory dotted with elegant and happy homes, and irrigated lands 
sending out tens of thousands of carloads of potatoes, flour, wheat, 
alfalfa, sugar, canned goods and live stock, and a city of homes 
numbering ten thousand prosperous people." Six days before his 
death Mr Greeley wrote to the founder of the colony: " I presume 
.you have already drawn upon me for the thousand dollars to buy 
land. If you have not, please do so at once. I have not much 
money and probably never shall have, but I believe in this colony 
and consider it a good investment for my children." — Boston Even- 
ing Transcript, February j, igii. 



The function of Greeley in this great development of history 
was not to stamp his impress upon policies, or to build up a clearly 
marked following on definite lines, but to awaken in the minds and 
hearts of millions of his countrymen the sentiment of abhorrence 
for slavery and the determination some way or other to bring it to 
an end. In the spread of this gospel through the agency of every- 
day journalism he was beyond all comparison the greatest force. 
Nor should it be imagined that, in saying this, one is paying tribute 
merely to the constancy of his advocacy. To hammer away at one 
subject year in and year out, in season and out of season, is a task 
of no special difficulty ; it requires neither peculiar ability nor 
unusual courage. What Greeley did was to make his Tribune 
editorials on slavery fresh and interesting and live, to say the same 
thing a thousand times without fatiguing his readers. That he was 
able to do this was due partly to his vigorous nature and his extraor- 
dinary command of racy and energetic English ; but it must also 




SENATOR JAMKS ]). MCCLELLAND 

Of the thirteenth Senate district 1911-14, who 
introduced bill providing for this report — in 
Senate 19 13 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 1 85 

in great measure be ascribed to the very fact that his interest in a 
great range of other subjects was almost as keen as in the dominant 
political issue that he represented. — Nczv York Evening Post, 
February j, iQii. 



The fame of Horace Greeley rests enduringly on the great work 
he did as editor of the New York Tribune ; in calling the Republican 
party into being and endowing it with issue? of vital power and 
popular appeal; in giving the antislavery cause practical direction, 
arguments and moral and physical momentum. He was a " pro- 
gressive " in that his mind was open to the impress of new ideas. 
With all his weaknesses he was an elemental force. In the progress 
of the American people he bore a high, compelling part. — Nezv 
York Evening Mail, February 5, igii. 



He was not a copy or a representative of a group. He was an 
original, and the definiteness of his peculiarities was a never failing 
source of gossip and discussion. . . . He was a unique character 
who strayed into the newspaper-making business, and he had the 
courage to be himself. H a man should appear with a like com- 
bination of gifts, he would in all likelihood create as great a stir 
and exercise as large an influence. — New York Globe, February 5, 
igii. 



CHARACTERISTIC UTTERANCES 
BY HORACE GREELEY 



CHARACTERISTIC UTTERANCES BY HORACE 

GREELEY 

LETTERS, EDITORIALS, ESSAYS AND SPEECHES 



AN OPEN LETTER TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
(Concluding portion) 



The Prayer of Twenty Millions 
On the face of this wide earth, Mr President, there is not one 
disinterested, determined, intelligent champion of the Union cause 
who does not feel that all attempts to put down the rebellion, and 
at the same time uphold its inciting cause, are preposterous and 
futile — that the rebellion, if crushed out tomorrow, would be re- 
newed within a year if slavery were left in full vigor — that army 
officers who remain to this day devoted to slavery can at best be 
but half-way loyal to the Union — and that every hour of deference 
to slavery is an hour of added and deepened peril to the Union. I 
appeal to the testimony of your embassadors in Europe. It is 
freely at your service, not at mine. Ask them to tell you candidly 
whether the seeming subserviency of your policy to the slave- 
holding, slavery-upholding interest, is not the perplexity, the despair 
of statesmen of all parties, and be admonished by the general 
answer ! 

I close as I began with the statement that what an immense 
majority of the loyal millions of your countrymen require of you 
is a frank, declared, unqualified, ungrudging execution of the laws 
of the land, more especially of the confiscation act. That act gives 
freedom to the slaves of rebels coming within our lines, or whom 
those lines may at any time inclose — we ask you to render it due 
obedience by publicly requiring all your subordinates to recognize 
and obey it. The rebels are everywhere using the late antinegro 
riots in the North, as they have long used your officers' treatment of 
negroes in the South, to convince the slaves that they have nothing 
to hope from a Union success — that we mean in that case to sell 
them into a bitterer bondage to defray the cost of the war. Let them 
impress this as a truth on the great mass of their ignorant and 
credulous bondmen, and the Union will never be restored — never. 
We can not conquer ten millions of people united in solid phalanx 
against us, powerfully aided by northern sympathizers and European 
allies. We must have scouts, guides, spies, cooks, teamsters, diggers 
and choppers from the blacks of the South, whether we allow them 



190 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

to fight for US or not, or we shall be baffled and repelled. As one 
of the millions who would gladly have avoided this struggle at any 
sacrifice but that of principle and honor, but who now feel that the 
triumph of the Union is indispensable not only to the existence of 
our country but to the well-being of mankind, 1 entreat you to 
render a hearty and unequivocal obedience to the law of the land. 

Yours 

Horace Greeley 
Neiv York, August ip, 1862 

— The New York Tribune, August 20, 1862. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S ANSWER 
Executive Mansion, Washington, August 22, 1862 
Hon. Horace Greeley: 

Dear Sir : I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed to 
myself through the New York Tribune. If there be in it any state- 
ments or assumptions of fact which T may know to be erroneous 
I do not now and here controvert them. If there be in it any 
inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now 
and here argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an 
impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old 
friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right. 

As to the policy I " seem to be pursuing," as you say, I have not 
meant to leave any one in doubt. 

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under 
the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored, 
the nearer the Union will be " the Union as it was." If there be 
those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same 
time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who 
would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy 
slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this 
struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy 
slavery. If I could save the Union without freeinjy any slave I 
would do it ; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would 
do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, 
I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored 
race I do because I believe it helps to save this Union ; and what I 
forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to savC) 
the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing^ 
hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing 
more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown 

1 



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THE LINCOLN PEACE LETTER 
1864 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 



191 



to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall 
appear to be true views. I have here stated my purpose according 
to my view of official duty, and I intend no modifications of my 
oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free. 

Yours 

A. Lincoln 

LETTER TO THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB 
By these presents, Greeting! 

To Messrs. Geo. JV. Blunt, John A. Kennedy, John O. Stone, 
Stephen Hyatt, and 30 others, members of the Union League 
Club. 

Gentlemen: I was favored, on the i6th inst., by an official 
note from our evercourteous president, John Jay, notifying me that 
a requisition had been presented to him for " a special meeting of 
the club, at an early day, for the purpose of taking into consideration 
the conduct of Horace Greeley, a member of the club, who has 
become a bondsman for Jefferson Davis, late chief officer of the 
rebel government." Mr Jay continues: 

" As I have reason to believe that the signers, or some of them, 
disapprove of the conduct which they propose the club shall con- 
sider, it is clearly due, both to the club and to yourself, that you 
should have the opportunity of being heard on the subject; I beg, 
therefore, to ask on what evening it will be convenient for you that 
I call the meeting," &c., &c. . . . 

Gentlemen, I shall not attend your meeting this evening. I have 
an engagement out of town and shall keep it. I do not recognize 
you as capable of judging, or even fully apprehending me. You 
evidently regard me as a weak sentimentalist, misled by a maudlin 
philosophy. I arraign you as narrow-minded blockheads, who 
would like to be useful to a great and good cause, but don't know 
how. Your attempt to base a great, enduring party on the hate 
and wrath necessarily engendered by a bloody Civil War, is as 
though you should plant a colony on an iceberg which had somehow 
drifted into a tropical ocean. I tell you here that, out of a life 
earnestly devoted to the good of human kind, your children will 
select my going to Richmond and signing that bail bond as the 
wisest act, and will feel that it did more for freedom and humanity 
than all of you were competent to do, though you had lived to the 
age of Methuselah. 

I ask nothing of you, then, but that you proceed to your end 



192 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

by a direct, frank, manly way. Don't sidle off into a mild resolution 
of censure, but move the expulsion which you purposed, and which 
I deserve if I deserve any reproach whatever. All I care for is, 
that you make this a square, stand-up fight, and record your judg- 
ment by yeas and nays. I care not how few vote with me, nor how- 
many vote against me ; for 1 know that the latter will repent it in 
dust and ashes before three years have passed. Understand, once 
for all, that I dare you and defy you, and that I propose to fight it 
out on the line that I have held from the day of Lee's surrender. 
So long as any man was seeking to overthrow our Government, he 
was my enemy ; from the hour in which he laid down his arms, he 
was my formerly erring countryman. So long as any is at heart 
opposed to the national unity, the Federal authority, or to that 
assertion of the equal rights of all men which has become prac- 
tically identified with loyalty and nationality, I shall do my best 
to deprive him of power ; but, whenever he ceases to be thus, I 
demand his restoration to all the privileges of American citizenship. 
I give you fair notice that I shall urge the reenfranchisement of 
those now proscribed for rebellion so soon as I shall feel confident 
that this course is consistent with the freedom of the blacks and 
the unity of the Republic, and that I shall demand a recall of all 
now in exile only for participating in the rebellion, whenever the 
country shall have been so thoroughly pacified that its safety will 
not thereby be endangered. And so, gentlemen, hoping that you 
will henceforth comprehend me somewhat better than you have 
done, I remain 

Yours 
Horace Greeley^ 
Nezv York, May 27,, 186/ 

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE 

To the Hon. Robert Dale Owen, of Indiana: 

Dear Sir: In my former letter, I asserted, and I think proved, 
that 

I The established, express, unequivocal dictionary meaning of 
marriage is union for life.. Whether any other sort of union of 
man and woman be or be not more rational, more beneficent, more 



1 For this out-from-the-shoulder blow the members of the Union League 
Club had no competent defense. The meeting took place, hut amounted to 
nothing, and Greeley heard no more from the club about his attitude as a 
southern sympathizer. [J. A. H.] 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I93 

moral, more Christian, than this, it is certain that this is marriage, 
and that that other is something else. 

2 That this is what we who are legally married — at all events, 
if married by the ministers of any Christian denomination — uni- 
formly covenant to do. I distinctly remember that my marriage 
covenant was " for better, for worse," and " until death do part." 
1 presume yours was the same. 

3 That Jesus of Nazareth, in opposition to the ideas and usages 
current in his time, alike among Jews and Gentiles, expressly 
declared adultery to be the only valid reason for dissolving a 
marriage. 

4 That the nature and inherent reason of marriage inexorably 
demands that it be indissoluble except for that one crime which 
destroys its essential condition. In other words, no marriage can 
be innocently dissolved; but the husband or wife may be released 
from the engagement upon proof of the utter and flagrant violation 
of its essential condition by the other party. 

And now, allow me to say that I do not see that your second 
letter successfully assails any of these positions. You do not, and 
can not, deny that our standard dictionaries define marriage as I 
do, and deny the name to any temporary arrangement ; you do not 
deny that I have truly stated Christ's doctrine on the subject 
(whereof the Christian ceremonial of marriage, whether in the 
Catholic or Protestant churches, is a standing evidence) ; and I am 
willing to let your criticism on Christ's statement pass without com- 
ment. So with regard to Moses : I am content to leave Moses's 
law of divorce to the brief but pungent commentary of Jesus, and 
his unquestionably correct averment that " from the beginning, it 
was not so." 

But you say that, if my position is sound, I make " a sweeping 
assertion " against the validity of the marriages now existing in 
Indiana and other divorcing states. O no, sir! Nine-tenths of the 
people in those states — I trust, ninety-nine hundredths — were 
married by Christian ministers, under the law of Christ. They 
solemnly covenanted to remain faithful until death, and they are ful- 
filling that promise. Your easy-divorce laws are nothing to them; 
their conscience and their lives have no part in those laws. Your 
slate might decree that any couple may divorce themselves at 
pleasure, and still those who regard Jesus as their Divine Master 
and Teacher, would hold fast to his Word, and live according to a 
" higher law " than that revised and relaxed by you. 

I dissent entirely from your dictum that the words of Jesu5 



194 'i'l'*' rMNl'-KSlTV OI- 'IIIE STATE OF NEW YORK 

relative to marriage and divorce may 'nave been intended to have 
a local and temporary application. Un the contrary, I believe he, 
unlike Moses, promulgated the eternal and universal law, founded, 
not in accommodation to special circumstances, but in the essential 
nature of God and man. I admit that he may sometimes have with- 
held the truth that he deemed his auditors unable to comprehend 
and accept, but I insist that what he did set forth was the absolute, 
unchanging fact. But 1 did not cite him to overbear reason by 
authority, but because you referred first to Christianity and the 
will of God, and because I believe what he said respecting marriage 
to be the very truth. Can you seriously imagine that your personal 
exegesis on his words should outweigh the uniform tradition and 
practice of all Christendom? 

You understand, I presume, that 1 hold to separations " from bed 
and board " ■ — as the laws of this state allow them — only in cases 
where the party thus separated is in danger of bodily harm from 
the ferocity of an insane, intemperate, or otherwise brutalized, in- 
furiated husband or wife. I do not admit that even such peril can 
release one from the vow of continence, which is the vital condition 
of marriage. It may possibly be that there is " temptation " in- 
volved in the position of one thus legally separated; but I judge 
this evil far less than that which must result from the easy dissolu- 
tion of marriage. 

For here is the vital truth that your theory overlooks : The 
Divine end of marriage is parentage, or the perpetuation and in- 
crease of the human race. To this end, it is indispensable — at 
least, eminently desirable — that each child should enjoy protection, 
nurture, sustenance, at the hands of a mother not only, but of a 
father also. In other words, the parents should be so attached, so 
devoted to each other, that they shall be practically separable but 
by death. Creatures of appetite, fools of temptation, lovers of 
change, as men are, there is but one talisman potent to distinguish 
between genuine affection and its meretricious counterfeit ; and that 
is the solemn, searching question, " Do you know this woman so 
thoroughly, and love her so profoundly, that you can assuredly 
promise that you will forsake all others and cleave to her only 
until death? " If you can, your union is one that God has hallowed, 
and man may honor and approve; but, if not, wait till you can thus 
pledge yourself to some one irrevocably, invoking heaven and earth 
to witness your truth. If you rush into a union with one whom 
you do not thus know and love, and who does not thus know and 
love you, yours is the crime, the shame ; yours be the life-long 



HORACK GREELEY MEMORIAL I95 

penalty. I do not think, as men and women actually are, this law 
can be improved ; when we reach the spirit-world, I presume we 
shall find a Divine law adapted to its requirements, and to our 
moral condition. Here, I am satisfied with that set forth by Jesus 
Christ. And, while I admit that individual cases of hardship arise 
under this law, I hold that there is seldom an unhappy marriage 
that was not originally an unworthy one — hasty and heedless, if 
not positively vicious. And, if people Tinll transgress, God can 
scarcely save them from consequent suffering; and I do not think 
you or I can. 

Yours 
A^^'zc York, March 11, i860 Horace Greeley 

— The Nezv York Tribune, March ij , i860. 

CORRESPONDENCE ON PROTECTION 
Editor Press: 

In reading an account of the exports for the year 1865, I find 
that we exported boots and shoes to the value of $2,083,210, printed 
calico 1,080,426 yards. Now I am at a loss to know how we can 
compete with foreign nations in foreign markets and claim a pro- 
tective tariff to compete with them at home? 

Why do we export wool to the amount of 466,182 lbs. and im- 
port shoddy to the amount of 8,133,391 lbs.? Will you or some of 
your correspondents enlighten us on this subject as it seems to be 
a mystery. 

Yours H. 

Anszver. — We export boots and shoes, as well as leather, because 
tanning material (bark) is more abundant and cheap, here than in 
FJurope. We have also surpassed all other nations in the invention 
and application of labor-saving machinery in the manufacture of 
boots and shoes. 

Printed calicoes is another of our old and well-established manu- 
factures in which costly machinery plays a very important part, so 
that we make them (though with much dearer labor) nearly as 
cheap as any other people. The French prints (calicoes) sell 
higher than ours, being esteemed more original and tasteful in 
design and fashion. The British have this advantage of us: their 
trade reaches all the ports of Africa, Asia and South America which 
ours does not. Can't you see why Chicago can sell more reapers 
(for instance) than Quebec or Rio Janeiro, though we sell them 
no cheaper? 



196 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

2 We import very much wool, and export a very little — mostly 
very coarse from California and Texas. Wool is dearer with us 
in the average than elsewhere. Shoddy is old woolen rags broken 
and ground over into a flimsy material for filling new fabrics. It 
is largely produced in Great Britain and imported here. The tariff 
bill before our last Congress imposed on it a prohibitory duty; but 
that was defeated by the Free Traders; so we must continue to 
wear shoddy in America as well as foreign fabrics. 

H. G. 
From manuscript in Nezv York State Library 

THE DEATH OF HIS LITTLE BOY 

My Friend : The loss of my boy makes a great change in my 
feelings, plans and prospects. The joy of my life was compre 
hended in his, and I do not now feel that any personal object can 
strongly move me henceforth. I had thought of buying a country 
place, but it was for him. I had begun to love flowers and beautiful 
objects, because he liked them. Now, all that deeply concerns me 
is the evidence that we shall live hereafter, and especially that we 
shall live with and know those we loved here. I mean to act my 
part while life is spared me, but I no longer covet the length of 
days. If I felt sure on the point of identifying and being with our 
loved ones in the Vk'orld to come, I would prefer not to live long. 
As it is, I am resigned to whatever may be divinely ordered. W 
had but a few hours to prepare for our loss. He went to bed as 
hearty and happy as ever. At 5 a. m. he died. His mother had 
bought him a fiddle the day before, which delighted him beyoni 
measure ; and he was only induced to lay it up at night by hi 
delight at the idea of coming up in the morning and surprising me 
by playing on it before I got up. In the morning at daylight I was 
called to his bedside. The next day, I followed him to his grave! 
You can not guess how lovely his long hair (never cut) looked in 
the coffin. Pickie was 5 years old last March. So much grace and 
wit and poetry were rarely or never blended in so young a child, 
and to us his form and features were the perfection of beauty 
We can never have another child, and life can not be long enough 
to efface, though it will temper, this sorrow. It differs in kind a.s 
well as degree from what we have hitherto experienced. 

Horace Greeley^ 



1 The preceding letter was furnished to the New York Evening Sun bj 
Thomas D. McElheim, in whose desk it had lain twenty years or longer. 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I97 

GREELEY JUDGES HIS OWN VERSE 

New York, Feb. lo, i8^p 

Mr Bonner: I perceive by your Ledger that you purpose to 
publish a volume (or perhaps several volumes) made up of poems 
not contained in Mr Dana's " Household Book of Poetry," and I 
heartily Avish success to your enterprise. There are genuine poems 
of moderate length which can not be found in that collection, ex- 
cellent as it palpably is, and superior in value, as I deem it, to any 
predecessor or yet extant rival. There are, moreover, some genuine 
poets whose names do not figure in Mr Dana's double index, and 
1 thank you for undertaking to render them justice; only take care 
not to neutralize or nullify your chivalrous championship by bury- 
ing them under a cartload of rhymed rubbish, such as my great 
namesake plausibly averred that neither gods nor men can abide, 
and you will have rendered literature a service and done justice to 
slighted merit. 

But, Mr Bonner, be good enough — you must — to exclude me 
from your new poetic Pantheon. I have no business therein — no 
right and no desire to be installed there. I am no poet, never was 
(in expression), and never shall be. True, I wrote some verses in 
my callow days, as I presume most persons who can make in- 
telligible pen marks have done; but I was never a poet even in the 
mists of deluding fancy. All my verses, I trust, would not fill one 
of your pages ; they were mainly written under the spur of some 
local or personal incitement, which long ago passed away. Though 
in structure metrical, they were in essence prosaic — they were read 
by few, and those few have kindly forgotten them. Within the 
last ten years I have been accused of all possible and some impossible 
offenses against good taste, good morals and the common weal — 
I have been branded aristocrat, communist, infidel, hypocrite, 
demagogue, disunionist, traitor, corruptionist, etc., etc. — but I can 
not remember that anyone has flung in my face my youthful trans- 
gressions in the way of rhyme. Do not, then, accord to the malice 
of my many enemies this forgotten means of annoyance. Let the 
dead rest! and let me enjoy the reputation which I court and 
deserve, of knowing poetry from prose, which the ruthless resurrec- 
tion of my verses would subvert, since the undiscerning majority 
would blindly infer that / considered them poetry. Let me up! 
Thine, 

Horace Greeley 



198 THE UNIVERSITY OF TIIE STATE OF NEW YORK 



i 



AN OFFER TO LEND MONEY TO A FRIEND 

Nezv York, Nov. 2p, 1851 

Won't you have some money? 1 earn a good deal and two- 
thirds of it goes every way to all manner of loafers — why not you ? 
I would rather send you $50 than not if you will let me — say so 
and I will do it. I long ago quit wanting to be rich — I never did 
want to live extravagantly. I own a house ; some mining stocks 
v;hich mean to be good some time ; and a quarter of the Tribune 
which pays, not to speak of any number of I. O. U.'s that don't 
pay and won't — they'd see me in heaven first. Let me send you 
$50, to be paid when perfectly convenient. 

JOHN BROWN DEAD 
There are eras in which death is not merely heroic but beneficent 
and fruitful. Who shall say that this was not John Brown's fit 
time to die? . . . It will be easier to die in a good cause, even 
on the gallows, since John Brown has hallowed that mode of exit 
from the troubles and temptations of this mortal existence. Then 
as to the " irrepressible conflict " : Who does not see that this 
sacrifice must inevitably intensify its progress and hasten its end? 
. . . So let us be reverently grateful for the privilege of living 
in a world rendered noble by the daring of heroes, the sufifering of 
martyrs — among whom let none doubt that history will accord an 
honored niche to Old John Brown. — The Nezv York Tribune. 
December j, 18 jp 

MAGNANIMITY IN TRIUMPH 1 

We had hoped to print herewith the President's proclamation of 
amnesty and oblivion to the partisans of the baffled rebellion, and 
we do not yet despair of receiving it before we go to press, though 
no portion of it has yet been received. We are apprised, however, 
by telegraph from Washington, that its tenor was publicly debated 
in that city yesterday, while our State Senate was agitated by a 
kindred discussion. W^e can not shut our eyes to the fact that 
strenuous efiforts are being made to swerve the President from the 
course to which his judgment and his feelings alike incline him by 
stigmatizing it as involving infidelity to principle or to party. 
Others will be heard on this point, though we were to keep silence: J 
we claim, therefore, our equal right to set forth our views, that ■ 
they be accorded such weight as they shall be deemed to deserve. 
W^e hear men say, " Yes, forgive the great mass of those who 
have been misled into rebellion, but punish the leaders as they 



I 




Original in Anicricana collection, 
State Historian James A. Holden 



his' very "scarce and unusual photograph secured by Austin W. Holden, Capt. Co. F, 
22d Reg't, N.Y. v., at.Harper's Ferry, Va., 1861 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL I99 

deserve." But who can accurately draw the line between leaders 
and followers in the premises? By what test shall they be dis- 
criminated? Some of the arch-plotters of disunion have never 
taken up arms in its support, nor have they held any important post 
in its civil service. Where is your touchstone of leadership? We 
know none. 

Nor can we agree with those who would punish the original 
plotters of secession, yet spare their ultimate and scarcely willing 
converts. On the contrary, while we would revive or inflame resent- 
ment against none of them, we feel far less antipathy to the original 
upholders of " the resolutions of '98 " — to the disciples of Calhoun 
and McDuffie — to the nullifiers of 1832 and the "state rights" 
men of 1850 — than to the John Bells, Humphrey Marshalls and 
Alex. H. H. Stuarts, who were schooled in the national faith, and 
who, in becoming disunionists and rebels, trampled on the pro- 
fessions of a lifetime and spurned the logic wherewith they had so 
often unanswerably demonstrated that secession was treason. 
Whether they weakly yielded to the madness of the hour, hoping 
that so they might ultimately " ride the whirlwind and direct the 
storm " to some ill-defined but beneficent purpose, or surrendered 
their judgment and their loyalty to that imposture of " state 
sovereignty " which they had always held in just contempt, or were 
driven by sheer cowardice and fear of bodily violence into a course 
condemned by all their better impulses, we protest against any 
discrimination whereby this class shall be screened or favored. We 
consider Jefiferson Davis this day a less culpable traitor than John 
Bell. 

But we can not believe it wise or well to take the life of any 
man who shall have submitted to the national authority. The 
execution of even one such would l^e felt as a personal stigma by 
every one who had ever aided the rebel cause. Each would say 
to himself, " I am as culpable as he ; we- dififer only in that I am 
deemed of comparatively little consequence." A single Confederate 
led out to execution would be evermore enshrined in a million hearts 
as a conspicuous hero and martyr. We can not realize that it would 
be wholesome or safe — we are sure it would not be magnanimous 
— to give the overpowered disloyalty of the South such a shrine. 
Would the throne of the House of Hanover stand more firmly had 
Charles Edward been caught and executed after Culloden? Is 
AAistrian domination in Hungary the more stable today for the 
hanging of Nagy Sandor and his twelve compatriot generals after 
the surrender of Vilagos? 



20O THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

We plead against passions certain at this moment to be fierce 
and intolerant; but on our side are the Ages and the voice of 
History. We plead for a restoration of the Union, against a policy 
which would afford a momentary gratification at the cost of years 
of perilous hate and bitterness. 

We have borne for a quarter of a century the unjust imputation 
of hating the South, when we hated and sought to subvert only 
slavery, the scourge alike of South and North, and the sole cause 
of discord between them. W'e have done what we could — of 
course, not always wisely — to bafile, to circumscribe, and ultimately 
to overthrow, the slave power. At length, through a succession of 
events which no human being could have devised or foreseen, the 
end which we sincerely hoped but hardly expected to see, is plainly 
before us. American slavery is visibly in the agonies of dissolu- 
tion ; if we live a year longer, we shall almost certainly see it laid 
in the grave; and, whenever abolished here, its expulsion from the 
last rood of Christendom that it now curses can not be postponed 
five years. Let us take care that no vindictive impulse shall be 
suffered to imperil this glorious consummation. 

Unquestionably, there are men in the South who have richly 
deserved condign punishment. Whoever is responsible for the 
butchery of our black soldiers vanquished in fight, or the still more 
atrocious murder of captives by wanton exposure and privation in 
prison camps, stands in this category. But the immediate issue 
concerns not the dispensation of justice to individuals but the 
pacification of a vast republic. He who fancies that oil the exhibi- 
tions of cruelty or perfidy have been the work of rebels has but a 
superficial knowledge of our current history. 

Those who invoke military execution for the vanquished, or 
even for their leaders, we suspect, will not generally be found 
among a few who have long been exposed to unjust odium as haters 
of the South, because they abhorred slavery. And, as to the long 
oppressed and degraded blacks, so lately the slaves, destined still 
to be the neighbors, and we trust at no distant day the fellow 
citizens of the southern whites, we are sure their voice, could it be 
authentically uttered, would ring out decidedly, sonorously, on the 
side of clemency — of humanity. — The New York Tribune, April 
II, 1865 

"RECONSTRUCTION" 

One of the most doleful prognostics to which our great struggle 
has tempted the enemies of the Republic afiirmed the impossibility 
of reconciling the southern people to the Union they had renounced. 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 201 

defied, and would fain have subverted. " What will you do with 
your Poland after you shall have conquered it?" triumphantly 
asked a Briton of a Unionist, not anticipating the obvious answer — 
" We will liberate the Poles." Nothing but universal freedom was 
needed to render the South preponderantly loyal when secession 
held her dumb and rigid in its embrace ; nothing more was needed 
to render even South Carolina a decidedly Union state. To make 
any state disloyal, you had to count its aristocracy everything, its 
working classes nothing; and, though this was the political status 
actually existing at the outbreak of the rebellion, it was an artificial 
status, which yielded readily to the rude shock of war. From the 
hour wherein the President issued his first proclamation of freedom, 
a preponderance of the numbers, the sine.ws, and the prayers of 
the South, ardently adhered to the side of the Union, and only 
liberty of speech and act were required to render that preponderance 
effective. To recognize the humanity and vindicate the personal 
rights of all the southern people was to overthrow the rebellion and 
restore the Union. And this is the essence of " reconstruction." 

Hence, we deprecated the adoption by Congress of any elaborate 
or even definite project of state restoration ; hence we confidently 
look for a speedy and thorough reestablishment of peace and return 
to the ways of industry and thrift under the aegis of the Union. 
The threat of protracting the war by guerrilla bands hiding in 
swamps and mountain fastnesses is idle. It might be possible for 
the Government to impel a frenzied handful to this resort by whole- 
sale confiscation and cruel rigor ; but no such madness is possible. 
We have had a great civil war, wherein blood has flowed like water 
and property been destroyed as though it were dross ; we have 
fought it out like men, and now we will all set to work to repair 
its ravages as rapidly and thoroughly as we can. All being now 
free, and most of us poor, we shall all set to work to rebuild our 
burned houses, replant and till our wasted fields, and repair our 
dismantled canals, railroads &c., at the earliest possible day, thus 
securing work to the idle, bread to the hungry, and opening vistas 
to comfort and independence for all. Our lamented dead can not 
be restored ; but the wounded will be nursed, the crippled cared for, 
with grateful tenderness, while we multiply the inventions and 
labor-saving machinery whereby the ravages and losses of war 
shall be speedily effaced or counterbalanced. We have a great 
public debt; but a moderate tax on the pernicious luxuries con- 
sumed among us will pay its interest and soon begin the reduction 
of its amount ; while bounteous crops of grain, meat, cotton, &c., 



202 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OI NEW YORK 

with large and steadily increasing drafts upon our mountains and 
glens of precious ore, will coniljine to pay ott our foreign creditors 
and secure a balance of trade in our favor. Union-Peace-Liberty 
— with these inscribed in light on our banner, we shall move firmly, 
proudly on to the fultllment of our country's magnificent destiny. 
May she be henceforth without exception a terror to oppressors 
and evil-doers and a beacon of hope and cheer to the enslaved and 
downtrodden throughout the hal)itable globe ! — The New York 
T rib line, April ii, 1865 

COUNSEL TO YOUNG MEN 
Extract 

Believe firmly in God. Not as a speculation, nor as a probability, 

but as vitally necessary to any rational explanation of the phenomena 
presented all around and within us, be profoundly and actively con- 
scious that God lives and reigns, and that all we see and are, exist 
in conformity to His will. " God said, ' Let light be ! ' and light 
was," is the most lucid and forcible, as well as the briefest exposi- 
tion of the nature and process of creation which our limited faculties 
can comprehend. It is true that we can not answer a thousand 
questions like these — "Was there ever a time when the material 
universe had not yet been spoken into being? If there was, what did 
exist? If God only, zvhere did He exist? And in what manner was 
His existence evidenced or manifested? If He is infinite and eternal, 
while the universe is finite and of yesterday, is it not likely to vanish 
in obedience to His fiat, and be known no more? " A simpleton may 
thus ask questions which the wisest man may not be able to answer, 
even to his own satisfaction. God's existence, freely admitted, by no 
means clears up the mysteries whereby we are pressed upon from 
every side ; but it indicates the quarter whence the solution is surely 
to be vouchsafed us in His good time. Feel that God is, and rules, 
and judges, and the dark problems that environ may no longer 
perplex and distress us ; the little we see and know becomes an incon- 
siderable part of a stupendous whole, which we need to see in its 
entirety before we can safely or wisely criticise it. What we depre- 
cate and lament as evil is illumined and transfigured; we know that 
it is enveloped and controlled by universal beneficence — that it is 
reined and mastered by Him who has said to the ocean — " Hitherto 
shalt thou come, and no further ; here shall thy proud waves be 
stayed." Since we know that God is, we are no longer orphans in 
His creation ; the stars in their courses may awe, but can no longer 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 203 

terrify or appall us, and all that was bleak and forbidden is irradiated 
and warmed by the sunshine of our Father's love. Whatever may 
perplex, or harass, or afflict him, let no young man permit anything 
to cloud or shake his steadfast trust in God. 

Take care of your health. Sinners as we all are, I doubt that we 
violate God's moral, half so often as his physical laws, unless one 
counts the latter violations as part of the former. Before we are 
old enough to know better, we eat and drink more than would be 
good for us were it ever so wholesome, with much that would be 
hurtful if the quantity imbibed were ever so moderate. Two-thirds 
of the pains and aches of childhood are the immediate effects of 
excessive or improper eating or drinking — of these and nothing 
else. But for these calamitous inflictions, most of us would have 
destroyed our digestive economy while yet in our teens. As it is, 
our teeth generally evince unmistakable symptoms of decay before 
we have severally attained the age of twenty-one. Dyspepsia soon 
adds its horrors in the case of multitudes ; and at thirty a formidable 
minority, if not a majority, are in the downhill of life, victims of 
their own ignorance and excesses. Bad cookery (generally excessive 
in the case of meats) ; food swamped and stewed in grease, meats, 
vegetables and beverages swallowed when too hot ( it were better 
that we took nothing when more than blood- warm) ; a jumble of 
acids and sweets, pickles and honey — these corrode our teeth, taint 
our breath, honeycomb our bones and deprave all the muscles and 
cartilages whereof our bodies are composed. Of our countrymen 
and women above forty years old, a majority are invalids or daily 
sufferers because of their earlier violations of the laws of life — not 
to mention the larger number whom these violations have already 
consigned to untimely graves. We eat too much ; we eat too fast ; 
we eat at irregular intervals ; we eat many things essentially and 
inevitably hurtful; we eat as though the stomach were an iron mill, 
bound to grind out whatever grists may be poured into the hopper. 
We pay for months of thoughtless indulgence and ignorant trans- 
gression, by years of inefficiency and suffering. Those who will 
inquire, and read, and consider, need not thus destroy themselves. 
We are victims of our own thoughtless sensuality, but not there- 
fore innocent victims. It is our simple duty to take good care of the 
lives and faculties which have been entrusted to our stewardship; 
and any infidelity to this high trust is sin. If cleanliness be akin 
to godliness, a due regard for health may be justly accounted a moral 
duty. Let each seek out the right and pursue it, as well with regard 
to himself as to his neighbors. 



204 THE UNIVHKS1^^ oi- Tin-: siatk ())• xew vork 

Be a good citizen. There are some who seem to fancy it saintly, 
or aristocratic, or something other than unpatriotic and paltry, to 
leave public affairs unheeded to go as they may, but he can not be a 
thoroughly good man who ignores or habitually neglects those public 
responsibilities which flow directly from citizenship in a free state 
or country. In every such country there will be some who seek 
personal aggrandizement through the control of political machinery; 
and every citizen who neglects his public duties, renders himself the 
accomplice of these self-seekers. If no one attended a primary 
meeting, or voted at an election, but those who sought to subserve 
private and selfish ends thereby, a republic must soon become the 
most corrupt and oppressive of despotisms. However good or bad 
in their practical influences our institutions may be, they must surely 
be made worse by each habitual abstention from the performance of 
political duties. He who sells his vote to the highest bidder is just 
twice as bad as his neighbor who does not vote at all. I question 
the fidelity to his trust of the man who feels at liberty to disregard 
his obligation to do whatever he honestly may, toward placing polit- 
ical power in capable and worthy hands. And tlie pretense that this 
involves a heavy sacrifice of time and means is utterly futile. I 
assert that an average of one day per annum will fully suffice for 
the just and faithful performance of any private citizen's public or 
political duties. 

As to office, I hold that the good citizen will never solicit it at 
any man's hands, nor will he decline it when its duties are within 
his capacity and do not involve a sacrifice greater than he can hon- 
estly make. If to accept must cause his children to go hungry, or 
his debts to go unpaid, then it can rarely be his duty to impose such 
privations on others. But if he can do what is required of him 
and yet fulfil all his obligations to his family or his creditors, then 
it is his duty to accept, and set an example of conscientious and 
circumspect performance of duties which others may contemplate 
with profit. If he waits to be solicited, such responsibilities are not 
likely to be laid upon him very frequently. 

Never be ashamed of frugality. Ostentation is a prevalent Amer- 
ican folly. Most of us would fain be thought richer than we are. 
Thousands incur expenses that they are scarcely able to meet through 
fear of being thought stingy or penniless, when they might better 
confess their poverty and save their money. " I can not afford it," 
a British duke will sometimes say, when asked why he does not 
incur this or that outlay : meaning, not that he has not sufficient 
money, but that he has devoted his income to other uses. The vul- 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 205 

garity which makes a boast of poverty is scarcely more reprehensible 
than that which fools away money in order to seem indifferent to, 
or reckless of, expense. Fear to be mean if you will, but never to 
seem so if your circumstances or your duty counsels frugality. 

Owe no man anything but good will. I do not insist that a debt 
should, under no circumstances, be incurred. I do maintain that 
the contingency is rare indeed in which a wise and true man will 
considerably involve himself in the meshes of debt. Yet how 
readily, how recklessly, most of our young men incur debt! To 
" get into business " — which generally means to get a living other- 
wise than by downright work — almost any poor youth will rush 
heels over head into debt, fancying that he can easily pay, by and by, 
a sum which exceeds his entire fortune ; whereas, a majority will 
never be free again while they live. Young men ! go to work, earn 
and save, and never owe more dollars than you shall have previously 
earned and saved. I can't help hoping for the day when those who 
lend without exacting security will be told to collect their own debts, 
if they can, and not ask the state to do it for them. 

Never degrade labor. Men do this every day, by asking for em- 
ployment as they would ask for alms. If you have no respect for 
yourself, you have no moral right thus to debase others. Faithful 
work for fair wages is a simple exchange, whereby each party is 
benefited, and neither is laid under special obligation. A true nian 
will sweep streets or dig ditches on this footing rather than secure 
easier and better paid employment by cringing and whining for 
something to do. It is this general aspiration to win easy places 
and obtain excessive wages that puts labor under the heel of capital. 
Fet every one readily accept and cheerfully do the most satisfactory 
work that any one really zvants him to do, and labor will be placed 
on its feet again. — - Wood's Household Magazine. 

THE FARMER'S CALLING 
If any one fancies that he ever heard me flattering farmers as a 
class, or saying anything which implied that they were more virtuous, 
upright, unselfish, or deserving, than other people, I am sure he 
must have misunderstood or that he now misrecollects me. I do 
not even join in the cant, which speaks of farmers as supporting 
everybody else — of farming as the only indispensable vocation. 
You may say if you will that mankind could not subsist if there 
were no tillers of the soil ; but the same is true of house-builders, 
and of some other classes. A thoroughly good farmer is a useful, 
valuable citizen : so is a good merchant, doctor, or lawyer. It is not 



206 TH1-: rNU'lCKSITN ()|- 'Pill': S'lWTE OF NEW VORK 

essential to the true nobility and jrenuine worth of the farmer's call- 
ing that any other should be assailed or disparaged. 

Still, if one of my three sons had been spared to attain manhood, 
1 should have advised him to try to make himself a good farmer; 
and this without any romantic or poetic notions of agriculture as a 
[)ursuit. I know well, from personal though youthful experience, 
that the farmer's life is one of labor, anxiety, and care ; that hail, 
and flood, and hurricane, and untimely frosts, over which he can 
exert no control, will often destroy in an hour the net results of 
months of his persistent, well-directed toil ; that disease will some- 
times sweep away his animals, in spite of the most judicious treat- 
ment, the most thoughtful providence, on his part; and that insects, 
blight, and rust, will often blast his well-grounded hopes of a geti- 
erous harvest, when they seem on the very point of realization. I 
know that he is necessarily exposed, more than most other men, to 
the caprices and inclemencies of weather and climate ; and that, if he 
begins responsible life without other means than those he finds in 
his own clear head and strong arms, with those of his helpmeet, he 
must expect to struggle through years of poverty, frugality, and 
resolute, persistent, industry, before he can reasonably hope to attain 
a position of independence, comfort and comparative leisure. I 
know that much of his work is rugged, and some of it absolutely 
repulsive ; I know that he will seem, even with unbroken good for- 
tune, to be making money much more slowly than his neighbor, the 
merchant, the broker, or eloquent lawyer, who fills the general eye 
while he prospers, and, when he fails, sinks out of sight and is soon 
forgotten ; and yet, I should have advised my sons to choose farming 
as their vocation, for these among other reasons: 

There is no other business in which success is so nearly certain 
as in this. Of one hundred men who embark in trade, a careful 
observer reports that ninety-five fail ; and, while I think this pro- 
portion too large, I am sure that a large majority do, and must fail, 
because competition is so eager and traffic so enormously overdone. 
If ten men endeavor to support their families by merchandise in a 
township which affords adequate business for but three, it is certain , 
that a majority must fail, no matter how judicious their management 
or how frugal their living. But you may double the number of 
farmers in any agricultural county I ever traversed, without neces- 
sarily dooming one to failure, or even abridging his gains. If half 
the traders and professional men in this country were to betake 
themselves to farming tomorrow, they would not render that pursuit 
one whit less profitable, while they would largely increase the com- 




AT CH AFP Ay LA 

" I am a poor chopper; yet the axe is my doctor and 
delight." Busy Life, p. so;^ 



HORACE GREELEY }ilEMORIAL 20/ 

fort and wealth of the entire community : and, while a good mer- 
chant, lawyer, or doctor, may be starved out of any township, simply 
because the work he could do well is already confided to others, I 
never yet heard of a temperate, industrious, intelligent, frugal, and 
energetic farmer who failed to make a living, or who, unless pros- 
trated by disease or disabled by casualty, was precluded from 
securing a modest independence before age and decrepitude divested 
him of the ability to labor. — What I Knozv of Farming, p. 42-4^. 

SECESSION 

There are probably those who believe that the South, fairly can- 
vassed, and relieved from the irritating threat of northern coercion, 
would have voted to dissolve the Union : I do not. I firmly believe 
that, if the North had been great enough, wise enough, to say to the 
South, just after Mr Lincoln's election: "You must decide this 
question for yourselves. We will not buy you, nor bribe you, nor 
hire you, whether with money or with ser\'ility, to stay with us ; we 
deny the pretended constitutional, legal right of secession ; but we 
afifirm the right of revolution — the right of each people to be gov- 
erned as they see fit. Choose, then, once and forever, whether to 
remain with us or leave us, "and as you choose it shall be" — we 
should have ensured the defeat and downfall of the conspirators 
for disunion. . . . Had we promptly and frankly quieted these 
[those opposed to northern coercion], by offering to leave the whole 
matter of disunion to a fair, unconstrained, popular vote of the 
Southern States, after mutual explanations and ample discussion, 
I think we should have saved the Union without bloodshed, and 
demolished the vocation of those who were incessantly and insult- 
ingly threatening that, if the North did this or didn't do that, the 
South would punish her by dissolving the Union and leave her to her 
natural insignificance. 

Doubtless, wiser men than I saw all this in quite another light ; 
1 am here to listen and learn ; but I must look through my own eyes ; 
and, after much consideration, I am yet firm in the faith that the 
course I advised was the true one.^ 

TO THE MEN OF KANSAS 
Men of Kansas ! It would ill become me, on this spot crimsoned 
by the life-blood and hallowed by the ashes of the latest martyrs 
to the cause of human libertv, who were at the same time among 



1 In the New York Tribune, August 23, 1865, under the caption, " AJl about 
the War." 



208 . TllK i;.\l\EKSnv Ol- THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

the bravest and noblest, to doubt your fidelity to the cause with whose 
struggles and trials the name of your embryo state is forever honor- 
ably blended. I will not distrust your integrity nor your constancy ; 
but I will venture to say, guard against dissensions ; guard against 
the corruption by Federal patronage or the promise of it of some of 
those you have been accustomed to confide in ; guard against apathy; 
guard against unchastened ambition ; guard above all against new 
frauds on your ballot-boxes ! . . . 

Yet, when I think of the steady diffusion of intelligence — the 
manifest antagonism between the efforts of the slavery extensionists 
and the interests of free labor — when I consider how vital and 
imminent is the necessity for the passage of the free land bill — when 
I feel how the very air of the nineteenth century vibrates to the 
pulsations of the great heart of humanity, beating higher and higher 
with aspirations for universal freedom, until even barbarous Russia 
is intent on striking off the shackles of her fettered millions — I can 
not repress the hope that we are on the eve of a grand, beneficent 
victory. But, whether destined to be waved in triumph over our next 
great battlefield, or trodden into its mire through our defeat, T 
entreat you to keep the Republican flag flying in Kansas, so long as 
one man can anywhere be rallied to defend it. Defile not the glorious 
dust of the martyred dead whose freshly grassed graves lie thick 
around us, whose imploring spirits hover over us, by trailing that 
flag in dishonor or folding it in coward despair on this soil so lately 
reddened by their patriot blood. If it be destined, in the mysterious 
Providence of God, to go down, let the sunlight which falls lovingly 
upon their graves catch the last defiant wave of its folds in the free 
breeze which sweeps over these prairies ; let it be burned, not sur- 
rendered, when no one remains to uphold it; and let its ashes rest 
forever with theirs by the banks of the Marais des Cygnes ! — From 
speech at a meeting of citizens attending the Republican convention 
at Osaivatamie, Kan., May i8, iSjp (Neiv York Tribune^ May ji, 
1859). 



CAMPAIGN ADDRESSES OF 1872 



CAMPAIGN ADDRESSES OF 1872 



APPEALS IN BEHALF OF RECONCILL\TION 

EXTRACTS FROM SPEECHES DELIVERED IN THE CANVASS OF 1872 

At Covington, Ky. 

Mr Mayor and Gentlemen: It is simply impossible for me, speak- 
ing from this elevation, to be heard by any considerable portion of 
this vast assemblage. I will therefore say but a few words, and let 
my life and actions speak for me the rest that I would gladly say. 
[Cheers] I am glad to stand before you on the soil of Kentucky, 
and to believe that I have your sympathy and cooperation in the 
efforts I have long made toward bringing the American people, the 
whole American people, into more hearty and cordial recognition 
of the truth that they are and must ever remain fellow countrymen. 
[Cheers] I have labored in behalf of that truth in the face of 
obloquy, of misrepresentation, of prejudice, and of the natural 
passion born of a bloody civil war. I believe that the hour of the 
triumph of that sentiment is now approaching. I believe that the 
day is at hand when we shall very generally realize that henceforth 
it becomes us to banish all bitterness and hatred, and forget our past 
conflicts and struggles against each other, and to remember only the 
blessed legacy of liberty and independence bequeathed to us by an 
illustrious ancestry. [Cheers] In behalf of these truths I have 
dared to alienate friends whom I loved, and who loved me. Ihave 
ventured to make myself called a turncoat, a renegade, by men who 
will yet comprehend me better, and regret that they so misappre- 
hended me. [Cheers] No fear of present injury, of present evil 
speaking, of present reproach, has at any time deterred me from 
doing that which seemed my duty to my country. 

When I first, at the close of our great war, declared that our coun- 
try must be rebuilt on the foundations of universal amnesty and 
impartial suffrage, I knew that platform was not acceptable at the 
North nor at the South. There were those who believed in and 
comprehended the blessings of universal amnesty, and yet rejected 
and spurned impartial suffrage ; and there were those who eagerly 
clutched at impartial suffrage and rejected and condemned uni- 
versal amnesty ; and there were a great many who were alike hostile 
to both. If the question had been put to a vote of the people of the 
country, not one-fifth of them would have sustained my program. 
Ytry well, said I, T can wait; and I have. 

211 



212 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

At Dayton, O. 

We are one people, and shall evermore remain one people. Shall 
we be a harmonious people? Shall ours be a Union cemented only 
by bayonets, or shall it be a Union of hearts and hopes and hands? 
I am for the latter union. [Applause] I am here not to exult 
over the victories won in the late war. I am here not to make one 
particle of prejudice or triumph. I do not propose to do anything 
which shall make the southern people feel bitterly that the union 
between us is one of exultation on our part and humiliation on theirs. 
1 think he is not a patriot who would try to intensify the bitterness 
and soreness that those who fought against us must feel in view of 
their great defeat. Theirs is a lost cause but they are not a lost 
people, for they belong to us. They are our brethren, they have 
come back to us under compulsion, if you say so; but I wish to 
change that compulsion into affection, for that is statesmanship. 
That work I am seeking, as far as I can, to do. 

Fellow citizens of Ohio': Since the day I left home I have made 
a great many speeches like this, but no man has heard from me one 
word implying disrespect or disparagement for that eminent citizen 
and public servant, the President of the United States. No word 
from me has thrown disparagement on his public services or dis- 
honor on his high office. I am among you, a citizen, speaking to 
citizens of the United States on things that concern your well-being 
and mine, because they concern the welfare and greatness of our 
common country. I beseech you so to act in the struggle now upon 
us, so to vote, that your acts and your votes will tend to bind up the 
wounds of our country. I beseech you so to act and speak and 
live, that your victory shall be a tearless victory ; that no one shall 
feel humbled because of your triumph ; that no man shall be trampled 
under your " on-rushing feet." So friends, in the hope and trust 
that Ohio, like Indiana and Pennsylvania, will pronounce, on the 
8th of October, for a genuine peace, I bid you farewell. 

At Jeffersonville, Ind. 

Mr Mayor and Citiaens of Jeffersonville: I should be very incon- 
sistent and ungrateful if my life had not been devoted, according 
to my best understanding, to the interest and welfare of the great 
laboring class, from which I sprang, and with which I have always 
been connected. Beginning life as a laborer on a farm, going thence 
into a mechanic's shop, and learning my trade as a printer, I have 
devoted the rest of my life first to my employment as printer and 
editor, and afterward to some extent to the calling of a moderate 

J 




Clendcnin mlh-, ! 



THE FAVORITE PORTRAIT 

Taken early in 1872. Mrs Clendenin's choice of her father's many 
photographs 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 213 

farmer. I feel that my sympathies could not have been otherwise 
than with the immense majority of mankind, who in all ages are 
required to subsist by their own manual industry. I have meant to 
be, in my politics as in my business, the friend of labor. I may have 
made mistakes (who has not?) in the policy which I thought best 
adapted to promote the interest of the workingman. I may just as 
well have been mistaken as equally honest, equally earnest men who 
have advocated a dift'erent policy ; but I know what my purpose 
was. 

I was in the days of slavery, an enemy of slavery, because I 
thought slavery inconsistent with the rights, dignity, and highest 
well-being of free labor. That might have been a mistake, but it 
was at any rate an earnest conviction. So when our great trouble 
came on, I was anxious first of all for labor — that the laboring 
class should be everywhere free-men. I was anxious next that our 
country's unity might be preserved, without bloodshed if that were 
possible — by means of bloodshed, if that dire alternative should be 
fastened on us. For, friends and neighbors, bloodshed is always 
a sad necessity — always a woeful necessity — and he who loves 
his fellowman must desire to make it as short as possible, and, so 
soon as peace can be restored, to efface as speedily as may be every 
trace not merely of blood on the earth, but of vengeful feelings 
from the hearts of his fellows. Such has been the impulse of the 
course I have pursued throughout the last few eventful years. 

My life has been an open book; all could read it. My thoughts 
have been given to the public warm and fresh, sometimes before an 
opportunity had been afforded for due consideration and correc- 
tion — very often mingled with thoughts of others which were not 
my own, but which it was very easy to attribute to me. So I have 
come on to this time. No one who heard my utterances or listened 
to them in any way directly after the close of the war, when I 
pleaded for magnanimity, for forbearance, for the speediest possible 
effacement of all sores and sorrows from the public mind — no one 
who heeded me then can doubt where I must stand now — no one ! 

Hamilton, O. 

So the South will say. The time shall be when the states south 
of the Ohio shall rejoice as heartily as you can rejoice, that slavery 
has passed away forever. They will feel that a great chain was 
lifted from their necks ; that the shackles were broken which bound 
their limbs when four millions of our American people were lib- 
erated and made citizens of this country where they had formerly 



I 



214 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

been slaves. They will yet realize that Virginia, the Carolinas and 
Georgia shall be richer and nobler, freer and purer than they would 
have been so long as part of their people were held in bondage. They 
will realize that what was their weakness has through emancipation 
become their strength ; will rejoice that nothing now remains to mar 
the unity or cloud the destiny of our country. Now we say, and they 
say, let hatred and bitterness, let contention and jealousy perish for- 
ever. Let us forget that we have fought Let us remember only 
that we have made peace. Let us say there shall be no degradation, 
no people over whom we triumph. Our triumph is their triumph. 
Our triumph is the uplifting of every one to the common platform 
of American liberty and American nationality. Our triumph is not 
the triumph of a section ; it is not the triumph of a race ; it is not a 
triumph of a class. It is the triumph of the American people, mak- 
ing us all in life, in heart and purpose the people, the one people 
of the great American Republic. 



I 



EXTRACTS FROM ADDRESSES 



EXTRACTS FROM ADDRESSES 



CONFORMITY 

I would have no man do this or refrain from that in contradiction 
from the world, any more than in consistency with it. Nay more: 
I admit and counsel acquiescence with the ordinary, the prescribed,, 
the established, in all matters essentially indifferent or trifling. J 
loathe perverseness — it is at war with harmony and the supreme 
good. Convince me that the Quaker remains stubbornly covered in 
the presence of his equals, his seniors, from mere mulishness or 
whim, and I abandon him to your rebukes. I will second them with 
my own. But let me realize that that rude noncompliance stands to 
him for a vital fact — that it symbolizes to him a great principle, to 
wit, the stern uprising of a true manhood against servility and fawn- 
ing adulation, and I will defend him to the last gasp — I will do him 
such reverence as befits a manly self-respect, for his stout fidelity to 
a conviction. 

But in truth the vice of our time, and I apprehend of all times, 
with rare exceptions, is of opposite tendency, and it is to oppose this 
that our shields should be locked and our spears pointed. There 
is a simpering and dapper conformity, a blind deferring to other 
men's estimates, habits, tastes, which robs life of its freshness, its 
originality, its masculine strength. Where all are content to dress, 
to dine, to w^alk, and most to think, to feel, to act, as some dozen or 
score shall see fit to dictate, what wonder that invention is checked, 
that genius is caged, that existence becomes tame and vacant, or, 
if not torpid, still unmeaning as an idiot's tale? The waters of this 
dead sea of complaisance and barren formality need to be visited 
now and then by the rough gales of Heaven, even though they be 
shocked, and agitated, and driven helter-skelter thereby ; better this 
than that they should become stagnant and putrid. Do not mistakenly 
imagine that you must go out of yourself — that you must become 
eccentric and extravagant to produce this effect. In the midst of 
universal ducking, and sidling, and compromise, you will seem 
sufificiently rigid and angular if you w^alk simply and naturally on. 

The danger of this dead complaisance — of living not your own 
genuine thought but other men's opinions, which even if true for 
them are not wholly so for you — is one of the most subtle and per- 
vading of the many which track the ingenuous and timid through life. 
It is an evil which magnifies as our social relations become more arti- 

217 



2l8 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

ficial, and complex, and penetrating. It assails us even on the side , 
of our virtues. Each of us is attached to some party in politics, 
some sect in religion, some coterie in morals, philanthropy or cul- 
ture; and this is well, so long as that party, that coterie, shall repre- 
sent to us the highest attainable good in that particular province 
which it contemplates. But the impulse which says, " Do not pro- 
claim that certain truth which you have discerned, because other 
men have not discovered it, and your bold advocacy will be wielded 
to the prejudice of your sect or party," deserves only to be scouted 
and trampled under foot. What right has sect or party to inter- 
meddle with your free thought, save to accept or reject it? What 
right to subject the line of your truth to the orbit of its policy — 
perchance its narrow policy and low though correct aims? O fear 
not to be wholly true and manful, and the devotees of policy and 
craft shall be driven into conformity with your lofty and earnest 
endeavor! — From lecture, the "Formation of Character." 

EDUCATION 
We seek and meditate a perfect combination of study with labor. 
Of course, this is an enterprise of great difficulty, destined to en- 
counter the most formidable obstacles from false pride, natural indo- 
lence, fashion, tradition, and exposure to ridicule. It is deplorably 
true that a large portion, if not even a majority of our youth seeking 
a liberal education, addict themselves to study in order that they may 
escape a life of manual labor, and would prefer not to study, if they 
knew how else to make a living without downright muscular exertion, 
but they do not ; so they submit to be ground through academy and 
college, not that they love study or its intellectual fruits, but that 
they may obtain a livelihood with the least possible sweat and toil. 
Of course, these will not be attracted by our program, and it is prob- 
ably well for us that they are not. But I think there is a class — 
small, perhaps, but increasing — who would fain study, not in order 
to escape their share of manual labor, but to qualify them to perform 
their part in it more efficiently and usefully — not in order to shun 
work, but to qualify them to work to better purpose. They have no 
mind to be drudges, but they have faith in the ultimate elevation of 
mankind above the necessity of lifelong uninterrupted drudgery, 
and they aspire to do something toward securing or hastening that 
consummation. They know that manual labor can only be dignified 
or elevated by rendering it more intelligent and efficient, and that 
this can not be so long as the educated and the intellectual shun 
such labor as fit only for boors. 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 21(J 

Our idea regards physical exertion as essential to human develop- 
ment, and productive industry as the natural, proper, God-given 
sphere of such exertion. Exercise, recreation, play are well enough 
in their time and place ; but work is the Divine provision for develop- 
ing and strengthening the physical frame. Dyspepsia, debility, and 
a hundred forms of wasting disease, are the results of ignorance or 
defiance of this truth. The stagnant marsh, and the free, pure- 
running stream, aptly exemplify the disparity in health and vigor 
between the worker and the idler. Intellectual labor, rightly directed, 
is noble — far be it from me to disparage it — but it does not 
renovate and keep healthful the physical man. To this end. we 
insist, persistent muscular exertion is necessary, and, as it is always 
well that exercise should have a purpose other than exercise, every 
human being not paralytic or bedridden should bear a part in manual 
labor, and the young and immature most of all. The brain-sweat of 
the student — • the tax levied by study on the circulation and the 
vision — are best counteracted by a daily devotion of a few hours 
to manual labor. — From address at the laying of the cornerstone 
of the People's College, Havana, N. Y ., September 2, 18^8. 



The great struggle for human progress and elevation proceeds 
noiselessly, often unnoted, often checked and apparently baffled, 
amid the clamorous and debasing strifes impelled by greedy selfish- 
ness and low ambition. In that struggle, maintained by the wise and 
good of all parties, all creeds, all climes, I call you to bear the part 
of men. Heed the lofty summons, not the frail messenger, and, with 
souls serene and constant, prepare to tread boldly in the path of 
highest duty. So shall life be to you truly exalted and heroic; so 
shall death be a transition neither sought nor dreaded ; so shall your 
memory, though cherished at first but by a few humble, loving hearts, 
linger long and gratefully in human remembrance, a watchword to 
the truthful and an incitement to generous endeavor, freshened by 
the proud tears of admiring affection, and fragrant with the odors 
of Heaven ! — Peroration of address before the literary societies of 
Hamilton College, Jidy 2j, 1844. 

THE NEW ERA 

So, then, friends, I summon you all. Republicans and Democrats, 

to prepare for the new issues and new struggles that visibly open 

before us. In the times not far distant, I trust we shall consider 

questions mainly of industrial policy — questions of national ad- 



220 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

vancement — questions concerning the best means whereby our dif- 
ferent parties may, through cooperation, or through rivalry, strive to 
promote the prosperity, the happiness, and the true glory of the 
American people. To that contest I invite you. For that contest 
I would prepare you. And so, trusting that the bloodshed in the 
past will be sufficient atonement for the sins of the past, and that we 
are entering upon a grand New Departure, not for one party only, 
but for the whole country — a departure from strife to harmony, 
from devastation to construction, from famine and desolation to 
peace and plenty — I bid you, friends and fellow citizens, an affec- 
tionate good night. — At reception of Mr Greeley at the Lincoln Club 
rooms, New York, June 12, 18/1. 



So the work of the lonely pioneer, buried deep in the primitive 
forest, wherein his rude log cabin has just been thrown up, around 
which he is slowly beating back the empire of shade and savagism by 
dint of axe and fire, seems petty and casual when regarded by 
itself; but could we, from some commanding height, some ship of 
the air, look down at once upon the whole body of pioneers at their 
daily labor, we should recognize in their desultory array the skirmish 
line of advancing civilization, the harbinger of intelligence, comfort, 
thrift, humanity, religion. The wolf, the bear, the serpent, perishing 
or vanishing as .the pioneer host slowlv, irregularlv, vet inexorably, 
moves on, are now seen to be types of a moral order, which civilized 
society is destined to supplant and replace. — At Cincinnati, O., 
September 20, i8'j2, address before the Exposition. 

THE PRESS 

I think we may fairly claim for the press this, that, with all its 
imperfections, and sharing, as it doubtless does, the passions of its 
patrons, it has done more, on the whole, to moderate than to stim- 
ulate those rapacious instincts and those ambitious passions of man- 
kind, which have been the great obstacles to human progress, es- 
pecially in the spheres of art and industry, and more than all of 
intelligence. We have heard tonight very much said of the advan- 
tages and the blessings of material commerce ; and all of it, I doubt 
not, truly. I think, however, that nations have profited more decid- 
edly, more consistently, or rather permanently, by the commerce of 
ideas, than by the commerce in material objects. And now, if China 
and this country are to come, as I trust they may, into more harmon- 
ious and intimate relations than they have hitherto held, I hope that 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 221 

she will gain more of us by borrowing our arts and our ideas, and 
that we shall gain more of her, as I doubt not we can gain more, by 
so borrowing of her those which are the less material trophies of her 
progress and her thought than by the simple interchange of commod- 
ities. — Speech at the banquet to Anson Burlingame and his asso- 
ciates of the Chinese Embassy, June 2^, 1868, responding to the 
toast, " The Press." 

LINCOLN 

The Republic needed to be passed through chastening, purifying 
fires of adversity and suffering: so these came and did their work, 
and the verdure of a new national life springs greenly, luxuriantly, 
from their ashes. Although men were helpful to the great renova- 
tion, and nobly did their part in it, yet, looking back through the 
lifting mists of seven eventful, tragic, trying, glorious years, I clearly 
discern that the one providential leader, the indispensable hero of 
the great drama — faithfully reflecting even in his hesitations and 
seeming vacillation the sentiment of the masses — fitted by his very 
defects and shortcomings for the burden laid upon him, the good to 
be wrought out through him, was Abraham Lincoln. — From "An 
Estimate of Abraham Lincoln," in "Greeley on Lincoln," ed. Joel 
Benton, p. 78-yQ. 



SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF 
HORACE GREELEY 



SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF HORACE 
GREELEY 

From an intej-view of the State Historian with Chester S. Lord, 

Regent of The University of the State of Nezv York and 

managing editor of the New York Sun for 

thirty-two years 

You have asked me to say something concerning my recollections 
of Horace Greeley. You have asked also concerning his relations 
with Charles A. Dana. Mr Dana went to the Tribune soon after 
the failure of the Brook Farm colony, and his relations with Mr 
Greeley were cordial and pleasant enough up to the time of the 
Civil War. Then they became somewhat strained owing to Mr 
Greeley's somewhat unnational attitude, wdiile Mr Dana was in favor 
of a more strenuous campaign for the preservation of the Union. 
Some of the most vigorous editorial articles of that period, which 
appeared in the Tribune, advocating stronger federal action, were 
inspired or written by Mr Dana. After the latter quit the Tribune, 
and had served as Assistant Secretary of War, he bought the Sun, 
and made it the great paper that it afterward became. I think that 
he and Mr Greeley did not to any great degree revive the old 
friendship, although for many years Mr Greeley's picture orna- 
mented Mr Dana's desk. At the time of the nomination of Greeley 
for the presidency, I had but recently arrived in New York City 
and become a member of the Sun staff. I can remember very clearly 
going as a cub reporter with Amos Cummings to visit Mr Greeley 
on the day of his nomination to the presidency, and listening to what 
he had to say. The editorial room was on the second floor of the old 
Tribune building, a four-story structure where the present Tribune 
edifice stands. Mr Greeley's desk was close to the window ; and 
from the street the great editor was to be seen always while at 
work. Either his desk was very high or his chair was very low 
for while he wrote his desk was nearly on a level with his chin. He 
was nearsighted. Had he lived until nowadays, he must certainly 
have been pointed out by the conductors of the " rubber-neck 
wagons," for he was one of the sights of the town. Mr Cummings 
wrote a fine description of Mr Greeley's surroundings and of the 
reception given to the scores of well-known persons who crowded 
in to congratulate him. Mr Greeley was writing an editorial article 
when the news of his nomination came. The room contained three 
chairs, two desks and a high stool. Two of the chairs were cane- 

225 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 22/ 

Dr Greeley (with an honest smile) — They have done just what 
1 thought they should have done, and just what I advised — referred 
the whole tariff business to the people, to be settled in the congres- 
sional districts. 

Reporter — If the people elect a majority of Congressmen in favor 
of a repeal of the tariff bill, and the Congress repeals that bill, what 
would be the duty of the next President of the United States? 

Dr Greeley (promptly) — It would be his duty to sign the bill 
passed by Congress. 

Reporter — If you are elected President will you sign such a bill 
if Congress passes it? 

Dr Greeley — I certainly will. I shall endeavor to carry out the 
expressed wishes of the ])eople, despite my own impressions or con- 
victions. 

Reporter — If the convention had adopted a free trade plank- 
would you have accepted the nomination? 

Dr Greeley — I would not. I telegraphed that if the free traders 
got control of the convention I would not accept the nomination. I 
could not have accepted the nomination on a high tariff' platform, for 
I believed that the whole subject should be referred to the people 
themselves. It was a matter that concerned the people more than 
the convention. The convention did right in referring it to the Con- 
gress districts. Our friends went into the convention with their 
colors fiying and came out of it with flying colors. The people are 
to decide the question of the tariff, and the people are the proper 
parties to decide it. 

Reporter — I see you were nominated on the sixth ballot, Mr 
Greeley. 

Dr Greeley — Yes. I think it more creditable to be nominated on 
the sixth than on the first ballot. It is an evidence that our friends 
had bottom, and that their bottom didn't fall out. 

Here the roar of cannon from the City Hall park shook the win- 
dows. Dr Greeley approached the closed window with a pleasant 
remark, and looked at the dissolving smoke. It was the first gun 
that had ever been fired in his honor. After the third discharge the 
Champion of Peace resumed his old position. 

Reporter — You will probably carry the South and West, Mr 
Greeley, and Massachusetts 

Dr Greeley (quickly) — No. Massachusetts will go for Grant. 
I feel quite sure of it. 

Reporter — Grant might decline the Philadelphia nomination. 



228 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Dr Greeley (smiling) — It is too late. He ought to have done it 
six weeks ago. Now it is too late. 

Reporter — If Grant declines, the Philadelphia men might nomi- 
nate, say Colfax for President and Wilson for Vice President. 

Dr Greeley (again smiling) — In that case the campaign might 
be a very interesting campaign. But the time has passed for such a 
ticket. It's too late. 

Here the Rev. Mr Ray, a colored clergyman, shook the Honest 
Champion of the People by the hand, saying, " We will put you in 
the White House, Mr Greeley. We surely will.'' 

Dr Greeley — The colored folks know me pretty well by this time, 
I think. My record has never been hidden. When they vote they 
can't claim to be blind. They vote with their eyes wide open. 

At this point Major D. P. Conyngham, editor of the Irish Demo- 
crat, approached Dr Greeley and pledged him his support. 

Dr Greeley — Well, I don't think my Irish friends will find my 
nomination a hard pill to swallow. 

Major Conyngham — No, indeed, Mr Greeley. You will find 
them solid for Horace Greeley. Betwixt you and Grant, you will 
get a hundred to one of their votes. I shall work and vote for you. 

Reporter (wickedly) — Mr Greelev, Major Conyngham is an old 
Tammany Democrat. He may eat his words before election. 

Dr Greeley (earnestly) — You have no right to assume this. My 
experience has been different. I have never found it so. This 
matter, however, is not a question of nationality, but of the people. 

Reporter — The people against a corrupt administration. 

Dr Greeley — The administration has made many mistakes. Its 
persecutions have been fatal to itself. The removal of Sumner from 
the committee on foreign afifairs, the base attacks upon Schurz, 
Trumbull, and Tipton, and. above all, the wholesale butchery of Fen- 
ton's friends here in this city, were terrible political blunders, but the 
corruption that taints it is much more damaging. 

Just at the time of his nomination for the presidency Mr Greeley 
was at the high tide of his popularity as a temperance lecturer and 
he did not permit his candidacy to cancel any of his engagements. 
Mr Dana thought it a mirthful situation for a Democratic candidate 
to be delivering assaults on the liquor habit, and he had Mr Greeley's 
temperance speeches lavishly reported. I wrote several of the re- 
ports, and was impressed by the speaker's very great earnestness. 
He was far from possessing a spark of oratory but he pleaded with 
his hearers to quit drink as a father might plead with a wayward son 
to cease disgracing himself. His talk was conversational, but as he 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 229 

became interested his words came faster and became a shrill falsetto, 
almost a squeak, and he was not so clearly understood. He gestured 
little, and, when he did extend his arms, he spread his fingers like a 
fan. He had a way of throwing his head and shoulders forward and 
backward by way of emphasis. Then, as though it had come to him 
suddenly that he was getting excited, he relapsed into rigidity of body 
and tranquillity of speech, only to do it all over again. I recall his 
saying that, when the ancient Greeks saw one of their number reeling 
through the street, they pointed toward him and cried " toxicon " — 
poison, he is poisoned, j^oison ! poison ! ! for the Greeks of old gave to 
drunkenness their name for poison ; — and Doctor Greeley kept 
shouting the word " poison " until it became a shrill note of admoni- 
tion that could not but be effective in the ears of his listeners. He 
told them that he had taken the temperance pledge in 1824; also how 
in his boyhood days the good clergymen of New Hampshire used to 
make twenty calls of an afternoon and take a drink at each stopping 
place ; how the whole community got drunk when one pastor was 
installed, and how everybody chided a poverty-stricken fellow who 
did not furnish drinks at his child's funeral. At this his hearers 
laugiied, and Doctor Greeley told them it was no laughing matter. 

And it was my lot, in the sad closing days of his career, to be the 
reporter who first wrote that his end was near. Mr Dana had heard 
of Doctor Cireeley's fatal illness and he sent me to a downtown mer- 
chant, who detailed to me that the editor was close to death in a 
Westchester county sanitarium. On Thanksgiving day morning. 
1872, the Sun, under the heading, " Horace Greeley Dying," told of 
his semiconsciousness, his insanity and his approaching death, which, 
indeed, was only a few hours away. 



NOTES FOR A LECTURE ON TEMPERANCE 

xA^s stated by Regent Lord, Horace Greeley was in great demand 
as a lecturer on temperance. His attitude was well understood by his 
contemporaries, and his lectures, for that day and generation, were 
of considerable value. As in many other things, Horace Greeley was 
in advance of the men of his time, and he became a pioneer in many 
movements for social U])lift, which today are just beginning to be 
deemed of importance by the country at large. At a recent sale of 
rare autographed letters and documents by one of the prominent 
sales companies of the country, there was included an item of notes 
for a temperance lecture written entirely in Greeley's own hand. This 
was acquired by the State Library, and we present herewith copies 
of the notes from which he elaborated his lecture. These are written 
on slips of paper 2^^ by 4 inches in size, and, while of course they do 
not constitute a full lecture, they are so epigrammatic and direct, 
that any one possessed of a knowledge of the subject, can construct 
a temperance lecture from these notes almost as easily as if the whole 
address were given. The notes constitute the meat of the address ; 
and from a knowledge of the man, we can well prepare for ourselves 
the piquant and snappy sauce which he served with it. 

TEMPERANCE 

MANUSCRIPT NOTES OF A LECTURE. 
I 

Intemperance has no advocates. 

Yet many abettors. 

Fair women proffer the sparkling glass. 

2 
Every drunkard was once a temperate drinker. 
Many believe themselves still such. 
The Queens county case. 

3 

" Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things." 
We love to evince contempt of danger. 
Every family has suffered by strong drink. 

4 
Yet the drunkard's son does not take warning. . . 
The drunkard dies and is forgotten. 
Our lying tombstones. 

231 



232 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

5 

Mistaken temperance admonitions. 

" If you drink you may become a drunkard." 

But then you may not. 

6 
Many have died of drinking who were never drunk. 
We are all hurrying- to the grave. 
Excess of all kinds. 
The evils of drinking moderately. 

7 
What is temperance? What is intemperance? 
The moderate use of things essentially hurtful is intemperate. 
Opium. Chloroform. Arsenic. 

8 

Alcohol a poison. 

The Westminster Review. 

How it afifects a child. The word intoxicate. 

It may yet be a useful medicine. 

Rut doctors who never drink seldom prescribe liquor. 

Dr Woodward. 

9 

How liquor affects the human constitution. 
Incipient inflammation of the stomach. 
Dr Sewell's plates. 

10 
Liquor stimulates because it poisons. 
" Liquor don't affect me." 
■ I feel that drunkards bear an undue reproach. 
In what respect is he who drinks 6 glasses and is sober better than he 
who drinks 4 and is made drunk? 

II 

Liquor hurts most those whom it least affects. . . . 
Drunkenness is not a penalty. It is a merciful interposition to shield. 

12 

Old men who drink. 

I once heard of one who died 108 years old. 

The adulteration of liquors. All but universal. 

Pure wines. 

The manufacture in New York. 




GREELEY THE LECTURER 



As he appeared on the platform for lecture bureaus in the 
early "seventies " 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 233 

The manufacture of Burgundy. 
My experience of champagne. 

More champagne drunk in New York city than is made from grapes 
in the world. 

14 
Strychnine" whiskey. 
An Ohio distiller. 

'■ Seven other devils worse than the first." 
American wine as an antidote to intemperance. 

15 
Intemperance in wine-drinking countries. 
The Bihle testimony. 

Noah. " Redness of eyes," &c. " Look not on the wine," &c. " O 
thou invisilile spirit of wine." 

16 

The truth that in temperate climates men are less addicted to this 

special vice. 
But they use opium, hasheesh &c. 

17 

Men love to be happy this instant at whatever ultimate cost. 
" Life let us cherish." " Whoever saw tomorrow ? " 

18 

Temperance and law. 

I condemn special legislation. 

If alcohol is a poison, which nevertheless has medical uses, let it be 

governed by the general law regulating the dispensation of 

poison. 

19 

Let us have it kept and dispensed only by men who can be trusted to 

do it conscientiously. 
The law of 1816 regulating intercourse with Indians. 

21 

Intemperance and crime. 

Gambling and every form of vice float on liquor. You can not main- 
tain them without. 
The blackleg may not drink, but he treats his customers. 



234 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

22 

The cost of crime. 

Pauperism a frightful and growing evil. 

Rum the main cause. 

'■ I have been young and now I am old," &c. 

23 

All Christendom appalled at this growing cancer. 

The right of the temperate to protection from wanton pauperism. 

The drunkard does not go to the rumseller for pity. 

24 

His wife and children appeal to us. 

We must help them by removing the cause of their sufifering. 

" You don't reach the seat of my disorder." 

25 
We shall never diminish pauperism till we throttle intemperance. 
Boasting of poverty. Men should not remain poor. 
Gerrit Smith at Richmond. 



HORACE GREELEY'S LIFE 
STORY 



HORACE GREELEY'S LIFE STORY 

Horace Greeley was born February 3, 181 1, in Amherst, N. H., and 
was the son of Zaccheus and Mary (Woodburn) Greeley. His 
father was a farmer. The boy was early inured to labor, and the or- 
dinary means of education were ill supplied. But his mother, a 
woman of remarkable qualities, knew how to foster sentiments of 
beauty and justice; while his mind, singularly active from the first, 
absorbed the contents of every book within his reach. It is related 
that at the age of four he could read " any book whatever." When 
he was ten years old, the family home was removed to West Haven, 
\'t. A year later Horace sought employment without success at the 
office of a newspaper, and in 1826 was apprenticed to the proprietor 
of the Northern Spectator, printed at East Poultney, Vt. His talent 
quickly attracted attention, some of the most responsible work of the 
paper passing into his hands. The newspaper suspended publication 
in. 1830. Young Greeley journeyed to Pennsylvania, where his 
father had found a new home, labored on the farm, set type in differ- 
ent offices, and, in 1831, traveled to New York City, arriving 
August 19th. 

The young stranger tramped from one printing office to another, 
before gaining permission to show what he could do. He was 
successively employed at the printing shop of John T. West, 85 
Chatham street, and the offices of the Evening Post, the Commercial 
Advertiser, and the Spirit of the Times. Early in 1833 he began, in 
partnership with Francis V. vStory, the printing of a penny paper, and 
at the end of its brief life took up other enterprises, at the same time 
by contributions to newspapers attaining mastery of clear, original 
expression. In 1834 he started, with Jonas Winchester, the publi- 
cation of the New Yorker, which appeared on March 22d, and was 
continued for seven years. At the end of its third year it had a 
circulation of 9500 copies. In 1838 he edited the Jeffersonian, a 
campaign paper issued at Albany. In 1840 he brought out, in aid of 
the presidential candidacy of William Henry Harrison, the Log 
Cabin, which gained a weekly circulation of more than 80,000. These 
enterprises led the way to the establishment of the New York Tribune, 
the first issue of which took place April 10. 1841. The first page 
of the initial number is occupied by the opinion of Attorney General 
Willis Hall "on the legality of the conduct of Robert H. Morris, 
recorder of the city of New York " ; and the second page presents 
some energetic editorial comment. One article was devoted to 
proofs that John Tyler was " a thorough Whig," another to " the un- 

237 



238 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

paralleled extravagance, fraud and corruption of the present Loco- 
foco common council," another to a Whig victory in Connecticut, 
while another is an argument intended to show the need in New 
York city of " a cheap daily, devoted to literature, intelligence, and 
the open and fearless advocacy of Whig principles and measures." 
News, advertisements and matter related to the death of President 
Harrison complete the four pages. The first assistant editor of the 
Tribune was Henry J. Raymond, later the founder of the New York 
Times. September 20, 1841 the New Yorker and the Log Cabin 
were merged in the New York Weekly Tribune. 

In 1848 Greeley was elected a representative in Congress to fill out 
an unexpired term. His service in that body was distinguished by a 
bill to encourage settlement of public lands, championship of manu- 
factures and an efifort to strike at the slave trade in the District of 
Columbia. But what marked it most and made it a fight from be- 
ginning to end was a scathing exposure of legislative abuses. 

In the year 1853 a farm of 75 acres at Chappaqua, N. Y., was 
bought. A suggestion of what was accomplished in a short time in 
transforming this land is afforded by the extract here given from 
James Parton's " Life of Horace Greeley," published in 1855 : 

It consisted, three years ago, of grove, bog, and exhausted upland, 
in nearly equal proportions. In the grove, which is a fine growth of 
hickory, hemlock, ironwood and oak, a small white cottage is con- 
cealed, built by Mr Greeley, at a cost of a few hundred dollars. The 
farm buildings, far more costly and expensive, are at the foot of the 
hill on which the house stands, and around them are the gardens. 
The marshy land, which was formerly very wet, very boggy, and 
quite useless, has been drained by a system of ditches and tiles; the 
bogs have been pared off and burnt, the land plowed and planted, 
and made exceedingly productive. The upland has been prepared 
for irrigation, the water being supplied by a brook, which tumbled 
down the hill through a deep glen. Its course was arrested by a 
dam, and from the reservoir thus formed, pipes are laid to the 
different fields, which can be inundated or drained by the turning 
of a cock. In the list of prizes awarded at our last Agricultural 
State Fair, held in New York, October 1854, we read, under the head 
of " vegetables," these two items : " Turnips, H. Greeley. Chap- 
paqua, Westchester co.. Two Dollars " (the second prize) ; " Twelve 
second-best ears of white seed corn, H. Greeley, Two Dollars." 
Looking down over the reclaimed swamp, all bright now with waving 
flax, he said one day. " All else that I have done may be of no avail ; 
but what I have done here is done; it will last." 

In 1 85 1 Greeley visited Europe, and served as one of the jurors at 
the great exhibition in London. Four years later he attended the 
French exhibition. In 1859 he made the journey across the plains 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 239 

to California, and public receptions were accorded him in a number 
of towns. He was a delegate to the Republican national convention 
of i860, where his influence was the chief factor in the nomination 
of Abraham Lincoln. He was a candidate for a seat in the federal 
Senate in 1861 ; was a member in 1867 of the convention to revise 
the State constitution; ran for the office of Comptroller in 1869; was 
defeated in 1870 in a congressional election. In the spring of 1867 
he signed the bail bond of Jefferson Davis at Richmond, Va. In 
1872 Greeley was made the candidate of the Liberal Republican party 
for President, on a platform which demanded reform of the public 
service, one term of the presidency and resumption of specie pay- 
ments, though the cardinal issue was a new policy in relation to the 
states lately in arms against the government. His nomination by the 
Democratic party followed. His canvass was distinguished by a 
series of speeches which he delivered in a tour of the East and the 
Middle West, speeches not more characterized by versatility and 
richness of information than by the patriotic spirit which lifted the 
speaker above the low ground of calumny and caricature. 

The November election saw Horace Greeley borne down by a pop- 
ular plurality of more than three-fourths of a million votes. But 
household affliction, the burden of the canvass and the sorrow due 
to the fiery attacks of many old friends had wrought such a work on 
brain and heart that political defeat came as a minor calamity. Some 
weeks before that event the illness of his wife had called him to his 
home, long and close watching at her bedside reduced his depleted 
strength, and her death left him almost prostrate. He never rallied 
from the accumulation of ills, and on the 29th of November passed 
out of life. 

Greeley's achievements did not exclude productions in authorship. 
He found time to write " Hints Toward Reforms " (1850), " Glances 
at Europe" (1851), "History of the Struggle for Slavery Exten- 
sion" (1856), " Overland Journey to San Francisco" (i860), "The 
American Conflict" (1864-66), "Recollections of a Busy Life" 
(1868, new ed. 1873), " Essays on Political Economy " (1870), and 
" What I Know of Farming" (1871). 

Mr Greeley was married July 5, 1836 to Mary Y. Cheney. Seven 
children were born to them, of whom two survived him, Ida Lillian 
and Gabrielle Rosamond. 



240 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 



CHRONOLOGY, 1811-1872 

181 1 Feb. 3. Born at Amherst, N. H. 

1 82 1 Jan. I. His family removed to Westhaven, Vt. 

1822 Sought employment in a newspaper office at Whitehall, N. Y. 
1824 Jan. I. Adopted total abstinence. 

1826 Apr. 18. Apprenticed to a printer at East Poultney, Vt. 

1830 June. Departed for Erie county. Pa. 

1 83 1 Feb. Employed by the Erie Gazette. 
1831 ^Aug. 19. Arrived in New York City. 

1831 Nov. Employed by the Evening Post. 

1832 Jan. I. (about) Employed by the Spirit of the Times. 

1833 Jan. I Engaged with Francis V. Story in printing the 

Morning Post. 

1834 Mar. 22 Started the New Yorker. 

1835 Aug. 12. His office burned. 

1836 July 5. Married Mary Y. Cheney. 

1838 Feb. 17. The Jeffersonian appeared, under his editorship. 

1839 Feb. 9. The last number of the Jeffersonian appeared. 

1840 May 2. Started the Log Cabin. 

1841 Apr. 10. Started the New York Tribune. 

1841 July 31. Announced his partnership with Thomas Mc- 
Elrath. 

1841 Sept. 20. The New Yorker and the Log Cabin merged in 

the Weekly Tribune. 

1842 Mar. I. Published first article of a series on Fourierism. 

1842 Dec. 9. Defended a suit for libel brought by James Feni- 

more Cooper. 

1843 Sept. I. Started the Evening Tribune. 

1845 Feb. 5. The Tribune building burned. ^' 
184.S May 17. The Semi-Weekly Tribune issued. 

1846 Nov. 20 to May 20, 1847. His controversy on Fourierism 

with Henry J. Raymond. 

1847 Journeyed to Lake Superior. 

1847 July 4. Attended a river and harbor convention at Chicago. 

1848 Nov. 7. Elected to Congress for one session. 

1848 Dec. 13. Introduced a homestead act.' 

1849 Ju^y T2. His son, Arthur, died. 

1850 Tan. 19. First president of New York Typographical Union 

No. 6. 

185 1 Apr. 11. Sailed for Europe. 



1 Several biographies contain the statement that Greeley arrived in New 
York City on August i8th. Tn " Recollections of a Busy Life " he indicates 
the date in these words: "It was, if I recollect aright, the 17th of August, 
i8,^t"; and on the next nage he states: " Mv first day in New York was a 
Friday." His account of the first three davs' residence is so complete as to 
leave no doubt that his arrival was on Friday; and Friday of the week in 
which it is agreed that he first saw that city was the 19th. 

2 In the main features this liill corresponds closely with the provisions of 
the homestead act of 1862. 



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IN MEMORY OF THE CHAPFAQUA FARMER 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL ' , 24I 

185 1 Aug. 6. Sailed for New York. 

1853 Bought a farm at Chappaqua, N. Y. 

1854 Aug. 16. Attended the Anti-Nebraska state convention. 

1854 Nov. II. Dissolved his political relations with Seward and 

Weed. 

1855 May and June. In Europe. 

1855 June 2-4. Imprisoned in Paris on a complaint connected 
with his service as a director of the New York Exposition 
of 1852-53. 

1855 Sept. 26. Attended the Republican convention at Syracuse. 

1856 Jan. 24. Assaulted in Washington by Congressman Albert 

Rust. 

1859 May 9. Began an overland journey to the Far West. 

1859 Aug. 17. Addressed a Grand Pacific Railroad mass meeting 
in San Francisco. 

1859 Sept. 5. Sailed from San Francisco. 

1859 Sept. 28. Returned to New York. 

i860 May 16. Delegate to the national Republican convention at 
Chicago. 

i860 Nov. 9. Opposed coercion of the cotton states. 

i860 Dec. 19, 22. Opposed the Weed and the Crittenden com- 
promise. 

1861 Feb. 4. Lost the nomination for United States senator. 

1862 Aug. 19. Addressed Lincoln in the " Prayer of Twenty 

Millions." 

1863 July 13. The Tribune building attacked by rioters. 

1864 July 17-21. At Niagara Falls in communication with 

southern commissioners. 

1864 Nov. 8. Presidential elector-at-large. 

1865 Apr. II. Advocated universal amnesty. 

1866 Sept. 3. Delegate to the Loyalists' convention at Phila- 

delphia. 

1867 May 13. Signed the bail bond of Jefiferson Davis. 

1867 June 4 to Feb. 28, 1868. Delegate-at-large to the constitu- 
tional convention. 
1867 Dec. 4. Declined the mission to Austria. 

1869 Nov. 2. Defeated as candidate for comptroller. 

1870 Nov. 8. Defeated in a congressional election. 

1872 May 3. Nominated for the presidency at Cincinnati. 

1872 Nov. 5. Defeated in presidential contest. 

1872 Nov. 6. Resumed the editorship of the Tribune. 

1872. Nov. 29. Died near Pleasantville, Westchester Co., N. Y. 




VICTOR GUINZBURG 

Vice president, Chappaqua Historical Society 



APPENDIX 



APPENDIX 

TOWNS BEARING GREELEY'S NAME 
The Postal Guide for 1914 shows that there are places in Alabama, 
Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Pennsylvania bear- 
ing the name Greeley. 

NAMING THE REPUBLICAN PARTY 
We learn from " The Republican Party," by Francis Curtis, vol- 
ume I, page 203, that the new party received its name in this manner : 
A. N. Cole, who believed himself to be the " Father of the Republican 
party," called a meeting for May 16, 1854. About a month previously 
he had written to his friend Greeley, and told him of his forthcoming 
convention, asking Greeley in his letter, " What name shall we give 
the new party?" To this question Mr Greeley replied, "Call it 
Republican, no prefix, no suffix, but plain Republican." 

INTEREST IN SPANISH LIBERTY 
When Isabella II of Spain was deposed by the revolution which 
broke out in the autumn of 1868, Greeley joined with other Ameri- 
cans in an address of congratulation to the Spanish government and 
people on the overthrow of " a tyrannical and corrupt government " 
at Madrid and the institution of a government founded on liberal 
principles. The date of the paper was November 3, 1868 ; and among 
the names attached to it were the signatures of E. D. Morgan, Peter 
Cooper, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Charles A. Dana. 

PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE 
Illustration: Horace Greeley, President, 1866-1870. 
" Mr Greeley, whose portrait adorns this report, was much inter- 
ested and active in the affairs of the Institute, and acted as President 
tor five consecutive years. In one of its quiet rooms [at the Cooper 
Institute Building] he wrote those powerful editorials which stirred 
the hearts of a great nation. The Institute possesses the desk Mr 
Greeley used at that period." — Eightieth Annual Report of the 
American Institute for the year ending January 20, ipop, page 7. 

A NEWSPAPER MEMORIAL 
The New York Tribune, on December 20, 1872, stated that Cornell 
University had compiled a memorial to Greeley from about two thou- 
sand newspaper articles on his death, representing all parts of the 
country. 

245 



246 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

SERVICE RENDERED TO GREELEY MEMORIALS 

The successful inauguration and carrying out of the various 
centenary observances, together with the work of selecting the site 
and placing the statue and preparing the program of exercises attend- 
ing its unveiling and dedication, involved an immense amount of 
labor on the part of many persons. Of those who gave of their time 
and effort in this cause, and who bore the brunt of the labor, the 
expense and the responsibility in achieving this success, it is entirely 
fitting that special mention be made. 

It will not, however, be feasible to give credit or mention in this 
report except to a very few who were conspicuous in dedicating 
themselves — body and soul — to this undertaking. The chief of 
these are undoubtedly Messrs John I. D. Bristol and Jacob Erlich, 
respectively the president and treasurer of the Chappaqua Historical 
Society. Others who should be mentioned are Edwin Bedell, secre- 
tary, and Victor Guinzburg, vice president. In this connection also, 
the artist, William Ordway Partridge, who went to work without 
delay, with vim and energy, to create the statue, deserves con- 
spicuous notice. Much credit is due to this sculptor not only be- 
cause of his beautiful, artistic representation of the master-journalist, 
but also because of the easy and convenient financial terms by which 
he made it possible to carry out this permanent memorialization, 
amounting in effect to a very handsome donation toward this work. 

Dr James H. Hyslop, secretary of the American Society of 
Psychical Research, was kind enough to come to Chappaqua on the 
evening of October 19, 1911, to deliver a lecture at an entertainment 
for the benefit of the Greeley statue fund. The lecture was on the 
subject of a scientific demonstration of the immortality of the soul. 
Other features of the program were vocal selections by Mrs Viola 
Waterhouse, Mrs J. K. Adams, accompanist, and a recitation of 
" Thanatopsis " by Mr John I. D. Bristol. 

Each of the other members of the Greeley memorial committee 
took an active interest in the progress of the enterprise, and, together 
with those already mentioned, made substantial money contributions 
vvhich were required to carry on and accomplish the admirable de- 
signs so well and so ambitiously outlined by the committee. The 
names of these members who have shown such devoted interest in 
fixing in durable form the memory of Horace Greeley are : Morgan 
Cowperthwaite, George Hunt, Wilbur Hyatt, George D. Mackay, 
John McKesson, jr, Hiram E. Manville, A. H. Smith, L. O. 
Thompson, Albert Turner. 



Tribune collection 



GREELEY MONUMENT 

In Greenwood cemetery Brooklyn 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 247 

Acknowledgments for photographs and cuts are due to the art 
department of the New York Tribune, Rev. Dr Frank M. Clendenin, 
Mr Frederick H. Meserve, Mr Ralph Meeker, Mr William Ordway 
Partridge, Mr John I. D. Bristol, Mrs Stewart L. Woodford, and 
Mrs Etta Kleinert Guinzburg, who made the Greeley placque ; and 
also to the library and the librarian of the Museum of the Type 
Foundry at Jersey City and to the American Institute Library. 
Thanks are due for printed material to Doctor Clendenin, Mr 
Meeker, Mr Jacob Erlich, Mr Albert E. Pillsbury, and Mayor 
George M. Houston. 

The editor is especially grateful to Mr Albert E. Henschel, of 
New York, whose vast collection of Greeleyana and whose inde- 
fatigable labor in gathering much of the material printed in this 
tribute have been of inestimable value in the production of this 
memorial. 




Tribune collection 



GREELEY STATUE IN FRONT OF TRIBUNE BUILDING 



BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL ON HORACE 
GREELEY 

Part I of this material is an abridgment, made for this report, of a com- 
pilation prepared by the late Nathan Greeley, editor of the New Orleans 
Delta; this very valuable manuscript book is now in the possession of the 
Rev. Dr Clendenin. It is supplemented by material, gathered for this Division, 
much of which is of later date than Nathan Greeley's compilation. 

Part I consists of books and pamphlets written by Horace Greeley, con- 
tributions to magazines and annual publications, articles for a work of refer- 
ence, introductions to books, miscellaneous articles and speeches. 

Part 2 consists of lists of biographies, biographical dictionaries, and works 
containing productions of his pen. 

Part I 

POOKS AND PAMPHLETS BY HORACE GREELEY 

Address before the Literary Societies of Hamilton College, July 23, 
1844. New York. William H. Graham 1844. Pamphlet, 40 p. 

Address on Success in Business, Delivered before the Students of 
Packard's Bryant and Stratton New York Business College, 
New York. Packard 1867 

An Overland Journey, from New York to San Francisco in the 
Summer of 1859. New York. C. M. Saxton i860 

A Political Textbook for i860: Comprising a Brief View of Presi- 
dential Nominations and Elections : Including all the National 
Platforms ever yet Adopted: Also a History of the Struggle 
Respecting Slavery in the Territories, and of the Action of 
Congress as to the Public Lands. Compiled by Horace Greeley 
and John T. Cleveland. New York. Tribune Association i860 

Art and Industry as Represented at the Exhibition at the Crystal 
Palace, New York. 1853-54: Showing the Progress and State 
of the Various Useful and Esthetic Pursuits, Revised and 
Edited by Horace Greeley. New York. J. S. Redfield 1853 

Association Discussed ; or the Socialism of the Tribune Examined, 
by H. J. Raymond and Horace Greeley. New York. Harper 

1847 
Controversy between New York Tribune and Gerrit Smith. New 

York. John A. Gray 1855. Pamphlet, 32 p. 
Divorce : Being a Correspondence Between Horace Greeley and 

Robert Dale Owen. New York. Robert M. DeWitt i860 
Essays Designed to Elucidate the Science of Pohtical Economy. 

While Serving to Explain and Defend the Policy of Protection 

to Home Industry, as a System of National Cooperation for the 

Elevation of Labor. Boston. Fields 1870 
Dedicated to " The Memory of Henry Clay, the genial, gallant, high- 
souled patriot, orator and statesman." 

249 



250 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Formation of Character ; a Lecture. New York. William H. 

Graham 1844. Pamphlet, 24 p. 
Glances at Europe : in a Series of Letters from Great Britain, 

France, Italy, Switzerland etc.. During the Summer of 185 1. 

Including Notices of the Great Exhibition or World's Fair. 

New York. Dewitt and Davenport 185 1 
Hints Toward Reforms. New York. Harper 1850. Second ed. 

enlarged with the Crystal Palace and Its Lessons. New York. 

Fowler and Wells 1854 
History of the Struggle for Slavery Extension or Restriction in the 

United States, from the Declaration of Independence to the 

Present Day. Mainly compiled and condensed from the 

journals of Congress and other official records. New York. 

Dix and Edwards 1856 
This history was issued without any announcement and had no preface 
or introduction. It was intended to do effective work in the Fremont cam- 
paign of 1856. 

Letter to a Politician, Oct. 20, 1869. Brooklyn 1877. Pamphlet, 
privately printed, 12 p. 
Addressed to Samuel J. Tilden. 

Letter of Horace Greeley to Messrs Geo. W. Blunt, John A. Ken- 
nedy, John O. Stone. Stephen Hyatt and 30 others, members of 
the Union League Club. New York 1867. Privately printed, 
16 p. 

Life and Public Services of Henry Clay, down to 1848, by Epes 
Sargent. Edited and completed at Mr Clay's death by Horace 
Greeley. New York. Greeley and McElrath 1852 

Mr Greeley's Letters from Texas and the Lower Mississippi ; to 
Which Are Added his Address to the Farmers of Texas and 
his Speech on his Return to New York, June 12, 1871. Tribune 
Office 1 87 1. Pamphlet, 56 p. 

Protection and Free Trade — an Elementary Exposition of the 
Tariff Question. Greeley and McElrath 1844. Pamphlet, 16 p. 

Recollections of a Busy Life: Including Reminiscences of Ameri- 
can Politics and Politicians, from the Opening of the Missouri 
Contest to the Downfall of Slavery: to Which Are Added 
Miscellanies. . . . Also a Discussion with Robert Dale Owen 
of the Law of Divorce. New York. Ford 1868. Second ed. 
Tribune Association 1873 

The American Conflict : a History of the Great Rebellion in the 
United States of America, 1860-65 : Its Causes, Incidents and 
Results : Intended to Exhibit Especially Its Moral and Political 
Phases, with the Drift and Progress of American Opinion Re- 
specting Human Slavery from 1776 to the Close of the War 
for the Union. Hartford. O. D. Case 1864, 2 v. 
Volume I dedicated to " John Bright, British Commoner and Christian 

Statesman " ; volume 2 to tlie " Union Volunteers of 1861-4." 

The Tariff as It Is. Greeley and McElrath 1844. Pamphlet, 16 p. 

The Tariff Question : or Protection and Free Trade Considered. 
New York. Greeley and McElrath 1852. Pamphlet, 24 p. 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 25 1 

The True Issues of the Presidential Campaign ; Speeches of 
Horace Greeley During his Western Trip and at Portland, 
Maine. Tribune Association 1872. Pamphlet, 32 p. 

What I Know of Farming : a Series of Brief and Plain Expositions 
of Practical Agriculture as an Art Based upon Science. 
Tribune Association 1871 

Dedicated to "the man of our age who shall make the first plow propelled 
by steam, or other mechanical power, whereby not less than ten acres per 
day shall be thoroughly pulverized to a depth of two feet, at a cost of not 
more than two dollars per acre." 

What the Sister Arts Teach as to Farming; an Address before the 
Indiana State Agricultural Society, at Its Annual Fair, Oc- 
tober 13, 1853. New York. Fowler and Wells 1853. Pam- 
phlet, 16 p. 

Why I Am a Whig — a Letter to an Inquiring Friend. New York. 
Greeley and McElrath 1852. Pamphlet, 16 p. 

CONTRIBUTIONS TO MAGAZINES AND ANNUALS, 
INTRODUCTIONS ETC. 

The Knickerbocker Magazine 

A Sabbath with the Shakers, June 1838 

Hunt's Merchant's Magazine 

Commerce and Protection, July and November 1839 

Remarks on Free Trade, May 1841 

Protection vs. Free Trade, August 1841 

The Grounds of Protection; Speech, March 1843 

Process of Working a Lake Superior Copper Mine, November 1848 

The Lady's Book 
Adolph Bruner, December 1839 

The Southern Literary Messenger 
The Faded Stars; Poem, February 1840 

Graham's Magazine 

Niagara Falls, August 1842 

My Fishing Days, November 1845 

The Northern Light 

Protection the Cause of Enlightened Philanthropy, December 1842 

The American Review 

The Twenty-eighth Congress, March 1845 
The Tariff Question, August 1845 

Pandora ; Review of the President's Message and Treasurer's Re- 
port, lanuary 1846 
Mr Walker's Report and Bill, April 1846 

Universalist Quarterly and General Review 

The Idea of a Social Reform, April 1845 



252 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

The Young American's Magazine 

How to Make a Man, March 1847 
The Divorce of Learning and Labor, May 1847 
Romance of the Nineteenth Century, July 1847 
The Hope of Human Progress, October 1847 
Obstacles to Universal Elevation, December 1847 

De Bow's Commercial Review 

River and Harbor Improvements ; the Chicago Convention, Novem- 
ber 1847 

The Nineteenth Century 

Land Reform, January 1848 

The Emancipation of Labor, April 1848 

Life — the Ideal and the Actual, July 1848 

Means and Chances of Success in Life, October 1848 

Holden's Dollar Magazine 

Tendencies of Modern Civilization, January 1849 

The Edinburgh Review 

Review of a Reviewer, January 1852 

Putnam's Magazine 

Modern Spiritualism, January 1853 

The Continental Monthly 

Across the Continent, January 1862 

On the Plains, February 1862 

Southern Hate of the North, October 1862 

The Obstacles to Peace, December 1862 

The New York Ledger 

Edward Everett, April 26, 1862 

A series of articles under the title, " Recollections of a Busy Life," was 
contributed to that paper during a period extending from August 17, 1867, 
to September 19, 1868. 

The Little Corporal 

A series of articles contributed under the general title, " Counsel to 
Boys." 

Self Trust, April 1867 

Religion. May 1867 

Education, June 1867 

Choosing a Vocation, August 1867 

The Independent 

The New Hope of Labor, July 1867 
The Farmer's Festival, October 1867 

The Galaxy 

The Fruits of the War, July 1867 
The One Term Principle, October 1871 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 253 

Harper's Magazine 

The Plains, as I Crossed Them Ten Years Ago, May 1869 

Journal of Social Science 
A Method of Diffusing Useful Knowledge, June 1869 

The Golden Age 
The Woman Question, 1871 

Wood's Household Magazine 

Counsel to Young Men, January 1871 

True and False Marriage, September 1871 

Farming and Manhood, October 1871 

Capital and Labor, November 1871 

The Conclusion of the Matter, December 1871 

Planning a Career, January 1872 

Manhood and Citizenship, March 1872 

A Plea for Frugality, April 1872 

Migration — Colonization — Homes, May 1872 

Our Westward Progress, June 1872 

New England, Past and Present, July 1872 

The South, September 1872 

Our Mutual Friend 

Commerce as a Pursuit; Reasons for Avoiding It, August 1871 

The City 
The Centenary of American Independence, illustrated, January 1872 

American Journal of Education 
Currency and Finance, i :632 

People's Journal, London 
Cooperative Life in America, 4:167 

The Inland Monthly 
Great Men: a Posthumous Lecture, October 1874 

LITERARY EFFORTS 

Mr Greeley contributed from 1840 to 1857 essays and poems to 
many annuals, souvenirs and " parlor table " books. 

AMERICAN INSTITUTE ADDRESSES 

He was also liberally represented in the published transactions of 
the American Institute, of which he was elected president. 
A list of addresses follows : 

Address on Forest Trees, Trans, for 1864 and 1865 
Opening Address at the 37th Annual Exhibition, Trans, for 

1867 and 1868 
Paper on Deep Plowing, Trans, for 1869 and 1870 
Address at the Celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the 

Origin of the Institute 
Address at the Opening of the 39th Annual Exhibition, 

Trans, for 1870 and 1871 
Address at the Closing of the 39th Annual Exhibition 



254 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

The Tribune Almanac 

The Whig Ahiianac and Pohtician's Register for 1838: con- 
taining Full Tables of the Vote for President in the Several States 
by Counties, Compared with the Votes Cast in the same States and 
Counties during the Last Year. . . . New York. Published by 
H. Greeley, and for sale at the New York Office, 127 Nassau street, 
1838. 

The first numbers of the Almanac were of a strong partisan bias, contain- 
ing articles from the Whig standpoint on the great issues of the day. It 
gradually dropped these articles and after 1855 contained besides the election 
tables the summary of events at home and abroad, and the principal acts of 
Congress. 

The Protection of Industry: Its Necessity and Effects, 1843 
The Grounds of Difference between the contending Parties, 1843 
Henry Clay ; on His Retiring from the United States Senate ; Poem, 

1843 
The Past and the Future, 1845 
The Tariff Question, 1846 
The Necessity for Protection, 1846 
Political History for 1846, 1847 

Origin of the Mexican War; Facts to be Considered, 1848 
The Mileage of Congress, 1850 
Postal Reform, 1850 
The Public Lands, 1850 
Congress in 1850, 1851 

Why I Am a Whig; Reply to an Inquiring Friend, 1852 
The Know-Nothings, 1855 
In 1868 the almanacs for i8f8 to 186S were reprinted in two volumes. 

Johnson's Cyclopedia 

Johnson's New Universal Cyclopedia. New York. A. J. Johnson 
1877. 4 v. 

Dedication 

To the memory of the late Horace Greeley, the great philanthro- 
pist and public educator — whom only to know was to love — this 
Universal Cyclopedia, which he planned and assisted in editing in 
part, is reverently dedicated by his devoted friend and household 
companion, the publisher. 

The publisher's announcement said that " the original suggestion 
of this work is due to the late Hon. Horace Greeley LL. D." 

Mr Greeley's Contributions 
Abolition of Slavery, i :i2 
Abstinence, Total, 1:15 
Agriculture, i :62 
Anti-Masonry, i :i75 
Anti-Slavery Society, American, 1:179 
Clay, Henry, i :97i 
Confederate States, or Southern Confederacy, i :io95 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 255 

Introductions and contributions 

Principles of Political Economy, by William Atkinson. With an 
introduction by Horace Greeley. Greeley and McElrath 1843 

The Writings of Cassius Marcellus Clay. Edited, with a preface 
and memoir by Horace Greeley. Harper 1848 

Report of the Commissioner of Patents for the Year 1849. With 
an introduction by Horace Greeley. New York. J. S. Red- 
field 1850 

Literature and Art, by S. Margaret Fuller. With an introduction 
by Horace Greeley. New York. Fowler and Wells 1852 

Woman in the Nineteenth Century, by Margaret Fuller. With an 
introduction by Horace Greeley. Boston. John P. Jewett 1855 

The Life and Campaigns of General U. S. Grant, by Rev. P. C. 
Headley. With an introduction by Horace Greeley. New 
York. Derby and Miller 1868 

Tribune Essays: Leading Articles by Charles T. Congdon. With 
an introduction by Horace Greelev. New York. J. S. Red- 
field 1869 

Voices from the Press : a Collection of Sketches, Essays and Poems, 
by Practical Printers. New York. Charles B. Norton 1850 

Contains a sonnet, Portrait of a Lady, the Pilgrimage to Manhood, and 
The Ideal of a True Life, by Horace Greeley. 

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. Boston. Phillips and Samp- 
son 1852 
Contains Margaret Fuller in New York, by Horace Greeley. 
Autographs for Freedom. Edited by Julia Griffiths. Boston. John 
P. Jewett 1853 
Contains Work and Wait, by Horace Greeley. 
Autographs for Freedom. Edited by Julia Grif^ths. Auburn. 
Alden and Beardsley 1855 
Contains The Dishonor of Labor, by Horace Greeley. 
Homes of American Statesmen. New York. Putnam 1854 

Contains Henry Clay, by Horace Greeley. 
Proceedings of the Tribune Club. New York. Cleveland and Mc- 
Elrath 1855 
Contains speech of Horace Greeley in response to the toast: "The New 
York Tribune." 

The United States Illustrated. Edited by Charles A. Dana. New 
York. Hermann J. Meyer, no date 
Contains The Capitol at Washington, Mount Vernon, and Representatives 
Hall, at Washington, by Horace Greeley. 

The Religious Aspects of the Age: Addresses Delivered at the 
Anniversary of the Young Men's Christian Union of New 
York, May 13 and 14, 1858. New York. Thatcher and 
Hutchinson 1858 
Contains The Christian Spirit of Reform by Horace Greeley. 



256 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Speeches Delivered at the Repubhcaii Union Festival in Commemo- 
ration of the Birth of Washington; Held at Irving Hall, Feb- 
ruary 22, 1862. New York. Putnam 1862 
Contains a speech by Horace Greeley in response to the toast, " The 

Press." 

Banquet to Anson Burlingame and His Associates of the Chinese 
Embassy, by Citizens of New York, on Tuesday, June 23, 1868. 
New York. Sun Book and Job Printing Flouse 1868 
Contains a speech of Horace Greeley in response to the toast, " The 

Press." 

A History of the Celebration of Robert Burns's iioth Natal Day, 
at the Metropolitan Hotel, New York. Jersey City. John 
H. Lyon 1869 

Contains a speech by Horace Greeley in response to the toast, "Auld Lang 
Syne." 

The Unity of Italy: the American Celebration of the Unity of 
Italy, at the Academy of Music, New York, January 12, 1871. 
Putnam 1871 
Contains a speech by Horace Greeley. 
The Great Industries of the United States. Hartford. J. B. Burr 
and Hyde 1872 
Contains The Tariff, a Protection to Manufacturers, by Horace Greeley. 
American Politics, by Thomas V. Cooper and H. J. Fenton. 
Chicago. Charles R. Brodix 1882 
Contains The Grounds of Protection, a speech by Horace Greeley at the 
Tabernacle, New York, February 10, 1843. 

The Poets of New Hampshire. Compiled by Bela Chapin. Clare- 
mont, N. H. Charles H. Adams 1883 
Contains The Faded Stars, Darkness over Earth Was Sleeping, and On 
the Death of William Wirt, by Horace Greeley. 

The Library of Choice Literature. Spofford and Gibbon. Phila- 
delphia. Gebbie 1883 
Contains My Farming, and Three Great Senators, by Horace Greeley. 



Part 2 

BIOGRAPHIES AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF HORACE 

GREELEY 

Brockett, L. P. Men of Our Day. 1868 

Buel, Clarence Clough. Biographical and Critical Sketch of 
Horace Greeley, in Warner's Library of the World's Best 
Literature. V. 12, p. 6653-56 

Cornell Memorial of Horace Greeley. A collection of about 2000 
newspaper articles on the death of Greeley, at Cornell Uni- I 
versity • 

Erlich, Jacob. Centenary of Horace Greeley. Chappaqua His- 
torical Society 1911 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 257 

Ingersoll, Lewis J. The Journalist, Reformer and Philanthropist ; 
the Life of Horace Greeley. Philadelphia. John E. Potter 

Life of Horace Greeley, written in nine and one-half minutes by 

the great trance medium. Baltimore 1872 
Linn, William A. Horace Greeley. New York. Appleton 1903 
Parton, James. Life of Horace Greeley. New York. Mason 

Bros. 1855. New edition, Boston, Houghton and Mifflin 1897 
Pike, James S. Horace Greeley in 1872. Republished from the 

New York Tribune 
Rahmer, Adolph. Das Leben Horace Greeley's. Boston. Osgood 

1872 
Reavis, L. U. A representative Life of Horace Greeley. New 

York. Carlton 1872 
Sotheran, Charles. Horace Greeley and Other Pioneers of 

American Socialism. Humboldt Publishing Co. 1892 
Wild Oats. Comic Life of Horace Greeley. New York 1872 
Zabriskie, Francis Nicoll. Horace Greeley, the Editor. New 

York. Funk & Wagnalls 1890 

CYCLOPEDIAS AND DICTIONARIES OF BIOGRAPHY 

Articles on Horace Greeley have appeared in the following bio- 
graphical works of reference : 
Alton's Encyclopedia. Minneapolis 1910 
American Annual Cyclopedia. New York. Appleton 1872 
American Dictionary of Printing and Bookmaking. New York. 

Howard & Lockwood 1894 
Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography 
Biographical Dictionary of America. Boston. American Bio- 
graphical Society 1906 
Biographical Sketches of Preeminent Americans. Boston. E. W. 

Walker 1893 
Cyclopedia of American Government. New York. Appleton 1914 
Cyclopedia of Political Science. John J. Lalor, ed. Chicago 

1881-84 
Cyclopedia of Temperance and Prohibition. New York. Funk & 

Wagnalls 1891 
Dictionary of American Biography. Boston. Houghton & Osgood 

1879 
Dictionary of Pohtical Economy. London. Macmillan 1910 
Dictionary of United States History. Puritan Publishing Co. 

Boston 1894 
Encyclopedia Britannica. Edinburgh. Black 1879 
Encyclopedic Dictionary of American History, in Library of Ameri- 
can History. Washington. American Historical Society 1900 
Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History. New York 1902 
History for Ready Reference. Springfield. C. A. Nichols Co. 

1895-I9IO. V. 5, p. 3573 , .. r -n- ' 

History of the State of New York, also an Encyclopedia of Biog- 
raphy. New York, Comley Bros. 1877 



258 THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Lamb's Biographical Dictionary of United States. Boston. James 
R. Lamb Co. 1900 

National Cyclopedia of American Biography. New York. White 
1893 

New Encyclopedia of Social Reform. New York. Funk & Wag- 
nails 1910 

Popular Cyclopedia of United States History. New York. Harper 

.1893 
Universal Dictionary of Biography. Philadelphia. Lippincott 1901 

PUBLICATIONS WHICH CONTAIN WRITINGS OF HORACE 

GREELEY 

Amendment to the Constitution, Tribune Tract No. 3, 1866. 

Contains letters of Greeley and Henry Ward Beecher. 
Carpenter, S. D. Logic of History. Madison, Wis. 1864 

Contains extracts from the New York Tribune. 
Eminent Women of the Age. Hartford. Betts 1868 

Contains an essay on Alice and Phoebe Gary. 
Forum. November 1897, 24:270 and December 1897, 24:404, 412 

Contains letters to Justin S. Morrill. 
Freedley, Edwin Troxell. How to Make Money. Routledge 1853 

Contains Principles and Prospects of Trade. 
House Report No. 48, 30th Congress, 2d session, vol. i 

Contains report on Lake Superior Mineral Lands. 
Independent. October 19, 1905, p. 912-15 

Contains unpublished letters furnished by Frederick E. Snow. 
Johnson, C. W. Republican Party : National Conventions, Pro- 
ceedings of the First Three Republican National Conventions 
of 1856, i860 and 1864, Including Proceedings of the Ante- 
cedent National Convention Held at Pittsburgh in February 
1856, as Reported by Horace Greeley. Minneapolis 1893 
Liberal Republican Convention at Cincinnati, May 1-3, 1872, Pro- 
ceedings 
Contains the letter of acceptance. 
Love, Marriage and Divorce, and the Sovereignty of the Individual. 
A discussion between Henry James, Horace Greeley and 
Stephen P. Andrews . . . and a subsequent discussion . . . 
20 years later between Mr James and Mr Andrews. Boston. 
B. R. Tucker 1889 
New York State Constitutional Convention of 1867, Proceedings. 

Contains speeches. 
New York Sun, May 6, 1872 
Contains a letter to boy editors. 
New York Times, June 15, i860 

Contains the letter of 1854 on policial appointments. 
North American Review, April 1867 

Contains a letter in relation to a critical notice of " The American 
Conflict." 



HORACE GREELEY MEMORIAL 259 

Our Day: A Gift for the Times. Edited by J. G. Adams. B. B. 
Mussey 1848 
Contains Fourier and his Social System. 
Saturday Evening Post, November 9, 1901 

Contains a letter. 
Spencer, J. A. [Jesse Ames]. Historia de los Estados-Unidos 
desde su primer periodo hasta la administracion de Jacobo 
Buchanan, continuada hasta nuestros dias por Horacio Greeley ; 
traduccion . . . por E. L. Verneuill. Buenos Aires. 
Piqueras, Cuspinera y Cia. 1870, 3V. 
Warner, Charles Dudley, ed. Library of the World's Best Liter- 
ature, V.12, p. 6653-56. 
Contains extracts from " The American Conflict." 



i 




THE GUINZBURG PLAQUE 

Presented by Mrs Victor Guinzburg to the Chappaqua 
Historical Society 



INDEX 



Addresses, extracts from, 217-21 
Alden, H. M., letter from, 120-21 
American institute, Mr Greeley 

president of, 245 
American Institute Library, acknowl- 
edgments to, 247 
Amherst, N. H., exercises at, 63-77 
Assembly, remarks of Alfred E. 
Smith, 22 

Barnes, Rev. Otis Tiffany, remarks, 

125 
Bedell, Edith Dorothea, Horace 

Greeley and woman suffrage, 134- 

35 
Bedell, Edwin, acknowledgments to, 

246 

Beecher, Henry Ward, extract from 
letter, 52 

Beveridge, Albert J., Horace Greeley 
and the cause of labor, 104-9 

Bristol, John I. D., interest in memo- 
rial to Horace Greeley, 17; ad- 
dresses, 36-38, 128-34; acknowledg- 
ments to, 246, 247 

Brown, John, death, 198 

Campaign addresses of 1872, 211-14 
Chappaqua, statue at, inaugurated, 
29-31 ; dedication of monument at, 
125-46 
Chappaqua Historical Society, or- 
ganization, 18; extract from by- 
laws, 20; address of president, 
128-34 
Church, Colonel William Conant, 

letter from, 19 
Chronology, 1811-1872, 240-41 
Clendenin, Rev. Dr F. M., address, 

126-28; acknowledgments to, 247 
Clendenin, Mrs Gabrielle Greeley, A 
personal impression of Horace 
Greeley, 33-35 
Conformity, address on, 217 
Cornell University, newspaper memo- 
rial, 245 



Counsel to young men, 202-5 
Cowperthwaite, Morgan, acknowl- 
edgments to, 246 

Day, Richard E., Horace Greeley, 
the journalist, 140-42; Horace 
Greeley, political and social leader, 
169-75 

Deacy, William Henry, architect of 
the pedestal, 23 

Dedication of monument, 125-46 

Dix, Governor John A., proclamation 
by, 21 

Education, addresses on, 218 
Erlich, Jacob, interest in memorial to 
Horace Greeley, 17; addresses, 31- 
32, 136-37 ; acknowledgments to, 
246, 247 

Farmer's calling, 205-7 
Formation of character, extract from 
lecture on, 218 

Greeley, Horace, nomination for 
President, il, 52, 73, 226; accept- 
ance of nomination, 12; defeat, 13; 
death, 14; sketch of life, 46-53, 
64-77, 92-95 ; connection with New 
York Tribune, 47, 67, 86, 112, 141, 
225 ; Horace Greeley and the cause 
of labor, 104-9; Horace Greeley as 
a journalist, 109-19, 140-42; Horace 
Greeley and woman suffrage, 134- 
35 ; Horace Greeley and the 
printers, 143-45; original manu- 
scripts, 149-52; letters, 149-52; as 
a colonist, 155-^5; letter on 
Greeley, Colorado, 165-66; political 
and social leader, 169-75 ; orator, 
editor and national benefactor, 
175-76; newspaper comment on, 
179-85; characteristic utterances, 
187-208; campaign addresses, 211- 
14; addresses, 217-21; life story, 
237-39 : chronology, 240-41 ; bio- 
graphical material, 249-59 



261 



262 



INDEX 



Greeley, Colorado, proclamation of 
Mayor, 22; Horace Greeley 
honored in, 81-97; founding of, by 
Ralph Meeker, 85-89; Horace 
Greeley as a colonist, 155-^5 ^ 
Horace Greeley's letter on, 165-66 

Guinzburg, Mrs Etta Kleinert, 
acknowledgments to, 247 

Guinzburg, Victor, acknowledgments 
to, 246 

Hays, Daniel P., address, 35 
Henschel, Albert E., discovery of 

" Oration at grave of Horace 

Greeley," 17; addresses, 44-45. 

137-40; acknowledgments to, 247 
Holden, James Austin, Why the 

centenary was held, 17-25 
Houston, George M., address, 81-85; 

acknowledgments to, 247 
Howard, Oliver, address, 89-96 
Howells, W. D., letter from, 120 
Hunt, George, acknowledgments to, 

246 
Hyatt Wilbur, acknowledgments to, 

246 
Hyslop, James H., acknowledgments 

to, 246 

Kansas, to men of, 207-8 
Kendrick, John R., letter from, 19 
King, Horatio C., address, 46-53 
King, Joseph E., quoted, 175-76 

Legislature of 1913, bill relating to 

unveiling of monument, 24 
Letters, 1 19-21, 149 
Lincoln, Abraham, letter to, 189; 

answer, 190; extract from address 

on, 221 
Lord, Chester S., Some recollections 

of Horace Greeley, 225-29 

McAdoo, William G., address, 54-55 
McCorkle, Walter L., letter from, 38 
McElroy, William H., Horace 

Greeley as a journalist, 109-19 
Mackay, George D., acknowledg- 
ments to, 246 
McKesson, John, jr, acknowledg- 
ments to, 246 



McNaught, John, address, 59-60 

Magnanimity in triumph, 198 

Manuscripts, original, of Horace 
Greeley, 149-52 

Manville, Hiram E., acknowledg- 
ments to, 246 

Marriage and divorce, letters on, 

192-95 

Meeker, Ralph, The founding of 
Greeley, Colorado, 85-89, 155-65; 
acknowledgments to, 247 

Meserve, Fre lerick H., acknowledg- 
ments to, 247 

Monument dedication, 125-45 

New era, i^ddress on, 219 

New York City, board of aldermen, 1 
resolution adopted by, 22 

New York City hall, memorial meet- 
ing, 43-^0 

New York Tribune, Greeley's con- 
nection with, 2^, 47, 67, 86, 112, 
14:, 225; acknowledgments to, 247 

New York World, editorial on 
Horace Greeley, 20 

Newspaper comment, 177-85 

Newspaper memorial compiled by 
Cornell University, 245 

Partridge, William Ordway, sculptor, 
2Z; acknowledgments to, 246, 247 

Pillsbury, Albert E., address, 64-77; 
acknowledgments to, 247 

Fress, address on, 220 

Protection, correspondence on, 195 

Reconstruction, 200 

RepubHcan party, naming, i^45 

Scott, Marsden G., Horace Greeley 

and the printers, 143-45 
Secession, 207 
Senate, resolution by, 21 
Sickles, Maj. Gen. Daniel E., address, 

53-54 
Smith, A. H., acknowledgments to, 

246 
Spanish liberty, interest in, 245 
Statue at Chappaqua inaugurated, 

29-31 ; dedicated, 125-46 
Studies and reminiscences, 155-66 



INDEX 



263 



Temperance, notes for a lecture on, 

231-34 
Thompson, L. O., acknowledgments 

to, 246 
Tole, James, address, 101-3 
Towns bearing Greeley's name, 245 
Turner, Albert, acknowledgments to, 

246 
Turner, Perry Brevoort, acknowledg- 
ment on behalf of the school 
children of Chappaqua, 135 
Type Foundry of Jersey City, 
acknowledgments to library and 
librarian of museum, 247 



Typographical union no. 6, commem- 
orative exercises by, 101-2T 

Union League Club, letter to, 191 

Vogt, Charles, letter from, 119 

White, Charles A., address, 96 
Williams, Rev. Dr Leighton, address, 

55-59 
Woodford, Gen. Stewart L., address, 

Woodford, Mrs Stewart L., 
acknowledgments to, 247 



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